PESHAWAR: Due to “artificial shortage” of petrol, prices of food items have increased manifold across in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during the past two days.
In Peshawar, chicken prices have reached Rs400 per kilograms and most of shopkeepers have stopped selling chickens due to high prices and low demand as consumers have lost their purchasing power. According to Amjid, a resident of Peshawar city, citizens are facing severe problems as district administration has failed to stop traders from creating artificial shortage of food items.
He further said that prices of rice, pulses, ghee, vegetables, meat and chicken in Peshawar have increased manifold and have gone beyond the reach of the common man but the administration has failed to take action against the hoarders.
Although federal government has rejected the reports of increase in oil prices, most of petrol pump owners have stopped the sale, due to which the prices of food items have increased by 20 to 50 percent.
Another citizen, Saeed said that for the past two days, he made several rounds to fill petrol pumps in Peshawar city, but fuel stations have closed sale on the pretext of running out of oil supply.
According to Saeed, hike in inflation and the shortage of daily essential items have caused a wave of frustration among the people and it has become difficult to purchase basic food items. He further said the people have lost their purchasing power and basic products like chicken, eggs, meat and others are beyond their reach.
Due to rumours of increase in prices of petroleum products, sale of petrol has been stopped at most of petrol pumps, while there are long queues of vehicles at few open petrol pumps. Petrol pump owners said that delivery of petroleum products have been reduced during the last few days.
Before February 1, there was also an artificial shortage of petrol in most of major cities, but the shortage automatically ended immediately after the announcement of increase in the prices of petrol by the Finance Minister.
