The whole sale dealers and retailers have pushed up prices of farms products/vegetables by more than twenty percent before Eid-ul-Azha in the provincial metropolis. House wives are buying and storing essential kitchen spices like onions, garlic, ginger, chillies tomatoes and various vegetables used in cooking of beef and mutton dishes in view of four days of Eid holidays and closure of next Sunday Bazaars.
One house wife Hina Fareed of Allama Iqbal Town told Business Recorder that the vegetable sellers have increased prices of garlic from Rs 110 to Rs 150 per KG, ginger from Rs 90 to Rs 115 per KG, onion from Rs 20 to Rs 35 per KG, peas from Rs 90 to Rs 120 per KG, as compared to past week's prices.
However, there was no significant change in the prices of fruits like apples of different varieties, bananas, guavas, kinnows, fruiters, Mosammi, oranges grapefruit, pomegranate etc. Similarly prices of dry fruits had also remained unchanged due to low demand. Meanwhile prices of chicken meat fell by Rs 10 per KG on Monday as poultry farmers are fast clearing their remaining stocks before Eid-ul-Azha.
Secretary General Pakistan Poultry Association Punjab Zone Javed Bokhari told Business Recorder that the chicken whole sale rate were fixed at Rs 87, retail Rs 93, and chicken meat Rs 135 per KG. Rates of table eggs were fixed at Rs 2340 per box of 360 eggs and retail of Rs 80 per dozen.
Meat/mutton market sources say that the poultry farmers are clearing their stocks, as there would be minimal demand of chicken meat during December due to storage of sacrificial meat by the consumers. In a statement here on Tuesday Jamaat-i-Islami condemned price hike by the traders before Eid-Ul-Azha and said it is failure of the District government to protect interest of the consumers by allowing the hoarders and profiteers to sell farm products at their own price.