Stern action directed vs profiteers and hoarders

ABBOTTABAD: The Commissioner Hazara Division, Riaz Khan Mahsud has directed all concerned to take stern action against the profiteers/hoarders, check the stock position of Utility Stores and submit reports on daily basis. He also directed the district administrations to involve intelligence agencies for detecting the hoarders etc. and depute respective Magistrates for monitoring all the 31 flour mills in Hazara Division.
Chairing a special meeting in compliance with the directives of the Chief Minister and Chief Secretary Khyber Pakhtunkhwa at his office Friday, the Commissioner tasked the administration officers of all the districts to ensure plentiful availability of essential edible items in the markets on prescribed rates besides display of government rate list at conspicuous place in the shops, markets and malls.
He further directed that respective Magistrates, along with Food and Agriculture officials etc., must visit fruit, vegetable and grain mandis every morning to fix prices and collect all necessary data regarding prices of Chicken, vegetables, Ghee, Sugar, Pluses and flour on daily basis. The Commissioner said that all government machinery and other available resources must be mobilized to control the prices in a bid to make them affordable for the common people.
All Deputy Commissioners in Hazara Division, officers of Law Enforcement Agencies, Hilal Food Authority and Divisional Food Directorate attended the meeting which discussed at length ways and means to curb the menace of profiteering, hoarding and price hike etc. and took various decision to implement the provincial government’s directions for controlling the price hike and ensuring availability of quality edible items on approved rates.
Meanwhile Riaz Khan Mahsud presided over another meeting on the current wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic wherein all concerned were directed to implement the covid-19 SOPs in letter and spirit especially in educational institutions.
Expressing apprehensions about reemerging of Coronavirus in current winter, he termed the lone corona testing machine, available at Ayub Hospital Complex, insufficient for entire Hazara Division and asked the concerned authorities to take immediate steps for arranging PCR machines as well as other necessary facilities at district level. He further directed to conduct corona diagnosis tests of all the students and teachers in education establishments.