Consumers blame the inactiveness of District Price Monitoring Committee and Pokhara Chamber of Commerce and Industry behind local traders´ refusal to display price list. Officials at the District Chamber of Commerce and Industry say they have issued public notices, urging the traders to display price list. They also rue that they lack the mechanism to compel the traders to execute their appeals.
District Price Monitoring Committee, on the other hand, claims that district chamber of commerce is the institution mainly responsible for the implementation of the program.
District chamber of commerce has been issuing public notices to local traders, urging them to display price list for the last three weeks. However, the notice doesn´t specify the deadline to display price list. May traders think that the notice is not mandatory for them. Some traders claim that they have no idea about the notice at all. Consumers have been bearing the brunt due to the lack of agency to monitor retail prices in the market. They have been compelled to pay different prices for same commodity at different stores.
A consumer said the traders had been fleecing them due to the lack of an agency to monitor prices. "You can check yourself. The price per kg of sugar is different at different outlets, ranging from Rs 60 to Rs 65," she told this scribe.
In response to rising price of food items, the government had issued circular to district price monitoring committees, under the district administration offices across the country, to do the needful in taming abnormal price hikes.
President of Pokhara Chamber of Commerce and Industry Man Kaji Makaju agrees that the chamber has not been able to implement the program. "We can only appeal local traders. We can´t compel them to implement it," he added. According to the chamber, only 1,600 of about 7,000 traders in Pokhara are registered with it.
However, Chief District Officer Madhav Prasad Ojha points finger at District Chamber of Commerce for the non-implementation of the program. He also informed that he would soon call a meeting of District Price Monitoring Committee to assess the situation. Ojha also urged the consumers to ask the consumers display price list at the outlets where they shop. "Ultimately, consumers have to be aware," he added.
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