On the direction of Punjab Chief Minister Hamza Shahbaz, Chief Secretary Punjab Kamran Ali Afzal conveyed priorities to the administrative officers for providing relief to people, directing them to bring down the prices of essential commodities through negotiations with sugar, ghee, flour mills and poultry associations. He issued these instructions while presiding over a video-link meeting of all divisional commissioners and deputy commissioners at the Civil Secretariat here on Tuesday. He said that the officers should perform their duties in a dynamic manner to control the inflation and continue taking measures for the stability of prices. The Chief Secretary directed that the restriction of one dish in wedding ceremonies be strictly enforced from today. He said that the one-dish ban is directly benefitting the common man and strict action would be taken against the violators of law on one-dish and marriage ceremonies timings. The Chief Secretary also asked the deputy commissioners to keep monitoring urea fertilizer prices, availability and take steps to control its smuggling. He said that protection of the interest of farmers is the responsibility of the government. He said that there is ample stock of urea fertilizer in the province, adding that the black marketers of fertilizer must be dealt with iron hands.
