Market monitoring team seals 5 valley shops

THE government market monitoring team on Sunday sealed four grocery shops and a bakery in the Capital for not complying with the government instructions to maintain price list, signboard, labeling of food packet, among others. Siriz Kirana Store of Thapathali, Edmund Bakery Centre, Shubha Pathibhara Stores, Manakamana Store, Acharya General Stores of Babarmahal have been sealed, according to the Department of Commerce and Supply Management (DoCSM) which coordinates the daily market monitoring. The shops were closed after a follow-up monitoring by the DoCSM on Sunday. The department said it was compelled to take such an action after the shops continued with old practice, overlooking previous warnings. The monitoring team found that five of the seven shops were not adhering to the department’s instruction. “The five shops failed to implement our instructions that include maintaining price list, sign board and labels on their products,” said Hari Narayan Belbase, director at the DoCSM. On top of regular monitoring, the depatment has intensified its follow-up inspections by taking into account the upcoming festive season. The shops in question were inspected by a market monitoring team on July 23. Manakamana Stores and Siriz Kirana Store had not registered with the government agency and they failed to abide by the department’s instruction in this regard. The DoCSM said whether to allow the shops to re-open would be decided on the basis of written clarifications of the traders after correcting their wrongdoings. A majority of the traders were not heeding the government instruction to correct mistakes. Belbase said the follow-up inspections would focus on changes in the market and seal businesses instantly if anyone is found flaunting with the rules. Normally, the inspection team checks the businesses and issues order to be present at the DoCSM within three to seven days for clarification. Of late, the government has been giving top priority to the inspection drive in view of the festive season to control unethical practices such as black marketing, hoarding and artificial price hike. Inspection of products such as edible oil, vegetable, rice and meat are on the top priority, as per the DoCSM which is set to add more teams for monitoring following the recent direction of the Ministry of Finance to increase the inspection activities.