Apps fail to control overcharging on perishable items Lahore March 1, 2021 LAHORE:The ministers, elected representatives and bureaucracy in the Punjab are submitting the good performance report on inflation and prices of essential items to the higher offices of the government but on ground they have left the buyers at the mercy of the overcharging, price list violation and sale of the substandard items at official rates. The industries minister used to issue orders to control overcharging and taking stern action against the officials who are ignoring his orders while practically no improvement was witnessed. Now another wave of the price hike, artificial inflation is around the corner in the forthcoming holy month of Ramazan as the stockiest already started hoarding the items which consumption increases this month. According to a handout, the Punjab government continued crackdown on profiteering and hoarding across the province and during last two months arrested 906 profiteers alongside registering 971 cases against violators and imposing Rs70 million fines on shopkeepers. However, the sellers made minimum five times more money from buyers. In Lahore, price list was not implemented anywhere in the city which also exposed the claims of the authorities concerned even after launching of an App to monitor the field performance of the assistant commissioners.