ISLAMABAD: According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), Punjab and Balochistan are the two most costly provinces when it comes to the difference between the real price of necessities and the prices set by the district government.
Based on the difference between district administration-set prices and market pricing, PBS has ranked the provinces. The goal of the experiment is to draw attention to governance concerns related to price control.
Stated differently, the rankings are a reflection of the various chief secretaries’ performances as the provincial administrative chiefs.
With an average difference of 60.15 percent between the market prices of necessities and the prices established by district administrations, Faisalabad tops the Punjab rankings. Multan, at 51.41 percent, Bahawalpur, at 35.46 percent, and Rawalpindi, at 33.34 percent, come next.
To check inflation, the majority of provincial officials haven’t even opened the official app.
Conversely, Lahore has the smallest average difference on the scale, at 8.39 percent, followed by Sargodha (10.89 percent), Sialkot (20.53 percent), and Gujranwala (21.92 percent). The substantial differences in price regulation between cities within the same province are highlighted by this data.
In Balochistan, Khuzdar (46.29 percent) and Quetta (46.86 percent) had the closest pricing differences. It is noteworthy that the PBS exclusively keeps an eye on prices in these two Balochistani cities.
Hyderabad is second in Sindh with a noteworthy price differential of 35.29 percent, after Karachi with 44.06 percent. Cities like this symbolize urban Sindh. On the other hand, the price difference in the inner city of Sindh, Larkana, is 24.62 percent, while Sukkur is not far behind at 22.94 percent.
The largest price differential in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was observed in the city of Bannu, at 29.66 percent, followed by Peshawar at 11.22 percent. For comparison, the PBS exclusively keeps an eye on these two provincial cities.
In contrast, Islamabad registered a 38.09 percent price difference, which suggests that there is insufficient administration to effectively manage costs for consumers. This large disparity between the prices established by the district administration and the market for food products is a reflection of the district government’s lax oversight of the federal capital.
The Decision Support System for Inflation (DSSI), which takes into account the different district administrations’ lax enforcement of official prices, has been used to assist close the price disparities. In order to give federal ministries, province governments, district administrations, and the National Price Monitory Committee (NPMC) information regarding the costs of necessities, the PBS created the DSSI.
The DSSI gives districts a rating system that allows provincial and federal administration to track price variations in 17 of the nation’s largest cities on a weekly and monthly basis.
Decision Support System for Inflation monthly report
High-ranking bureaucrats in Sindh and Balochistan, two regions with record-breaking inflation that has continued to worry policymakers, seem least interested in using the DSSI, a tool designed to track the cost of necessities for consumers.
The top official from the largest province spent the most time using the DSSI to monitor prices, while the other two provinces, Punjab and KP, demonstrated some interest.
In February, the chief secretary of Punjab made 21 logins to the DSSI app, and the chief secretary of KP made three logins. Nevertheless, throughout the same time frame, the chief secretaries of Sindh and Balochistan failed to check in at all to keep an eye on the levels of consumer prices in their respective regions.
In certain districts, 17 deputy commissioners have access to the system. Thirteen of them—from Islamabad, Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan, Hyderabad, Sialkot, Bahawalpur, Peshawar, and Quetta—did not check consumer pricing on the system even once in a 29-day period.
Throughout the month, the deputy commissioners from Gujranwala, Karachi, Rawalpindi, and Sialkot only once logged into the system.
