The consumers have been at the receiving end these days.
The prices have been galloping like the runaway horses. Add on to it the 10 percent increase in house rent, which the landlord/lady can legally impose. Living in Thimphu is no more as beautiful as before, many said.
A grocery shop keeper recently said that there was no profit in selling rice. But he has to continue to do so. His customers depend on him. By the time the bags of rice reach his shop, there is always a few kgs less not because the supplier is cheating him but because spillage during the transportation.
He doesn’t feel good to charge his much more customers the rate at which he has to buy from the suppliers. That is your kind neighbourhood grocer. Of course in business, kindness doesn’t account for much. But then the neighbourhood business persons also have to think in terms of neighbourliness.
After all, whatever you do, one has to live in a community.
That may not be case every where you go to shop. If you tell the shop keeper that s/he is charging you more than what is written as MRP price on the product, you may be sooner shown the door, probably in an insulting terms, than be given an explanation for the high price that was quoted.
Issuing more grocery licenses was expected to ensure competition so that the consumers would benefit. It is not about undercutting one another. Every one has to make a profit, without which the shop keepers would go out of business. Reports say that all grocers sell above MRP except for a few wholesalers.
If wholesalers sell at MRP, what about the margin for the retailers? Of course, every one has to have a margin or cut, considering the tax and the transportation cost that have to be paid.
Sugar price has gone up to Nu. 55. The price has risen within a space of three months. Of course, the excuse is that sugar cane harvest in India was bad last year. Every time there is some problem at the other end doesn’t necessarily mean that there should be a hike in price at the consumer’s point.
An additional Nu or two at the periphery of the main town is fine. The vendor has to pay for the cost of transportation from the wholesaler and the consumer benefits because one doesn’t have to go all the way to the town.
This year also saw a hike in vegetable prices. While the FCB yards talked of good prices that our farm products were fetching, the local people had to pay through their nose because potato and other crops were going outside the country.
There is also what one may say no uniform rates for the same item of grocery or vegetable. It has to vary according to the distance or the cost involved in transportation. However it shouldn’t really be exorbitantly higher from one place to another. This attitude of take it or leave it needs a little bit of refinement.
Talking of MRP, one suddenly realises that we are not in a position to make the shop keeper to sell a certain product on the MRP rate.
Why one may ask? MRP does not exist as a government policy or rule. The MRP written on the Indian goods or products cannot be enforced. We only have MRP claims for products produced within the country.
The Trade Director recent statement that MRP for products manufactured in India is not true. Go and ask FCB and the other wholesalers or even or the manufacturers in India.
The big companies/manufacturers like Nestle, Hindustan Lever, Proctor and Gamble,etc. etc. not only pay for the transportation of their products up to the sales point but also there is separate profit margins for the dealer, wholesaler as well as the retailer, all built within the MRP. I used to work in FCB before when we managed to enforce the MRP in the country for the first time. Dealership of such goods was monopolized till then by Tashi CC and a few other trading houses, and they used to make hefty profits at the expense of the consumers. The with the joint effort of the then MTI and FCB, FCB also managed to get dealership of the same goods simply because of the RGOB’s push for monopolization, and FCB’s existing country-wide godown and retail infrastructure. So, the Trade Director is either unaware of this or he is on the side of the traders as is the case with many of his colleagues who are bribed by the traders to look the other way.
Bhutan Today may like to do a more thorough research into this.