The provincial and district governments regulate the prices of essential commodities and these governments have price control committees and magistrates, he added. The minister maintained that since the control of meat price is mainly the mandate of provincial and district governments nevertheless Ministry of Livestock & Dairy Development has taken the following steps to control the increase in price of meat:
He informed the assembly that the government established a private sector company namely "Livestock and Dairy Development Board (LDDB)" to increase the pace of development in livestock sector. LDDB is implementing a project titled "Livestock Production and Development for Meat Production" (2005-2010). The project is providing full technical and partial financial assistance (max. 15 percent) for the infrastructure development at livestock farm level.
Under this project a total of 11609 farm fattening operations (6906 beef farms and 4703 mutton farms) have been completed from January 2007 to December 2009, in which 3,54,306 animals (1,44,216 beef animals and 2,10,090 mutton animals) have been fattened. Consequent upon Govt. measures taken regarding livestock sector, the meat (mutton & beef) production has increased by 4 percent (2.73 million tons) in 2008-09 vis 2007-08. In order to improve supply situation of meat in the country, import of livestock and halal meat is allowed and for import purposes, the animal quarantine fee to the tune of Rs 100 per animal and test fee Rs 75/animal is waived off;
He said that the government was encouraging the importer to open their sales outlets in a bid to limit the role of middle man and in this regard M/S Zeenith Associates and Ummer Hamza Associates have initially opened outlets in Lahore. According to data collected from Animal Quarantine Department, 4782.5 tons of beef was imported in 2007-08, while the quantity is 768.66 tons during July 2008-February 2009.
He said that the District Governments are routinely checking & controlling the prices of meat and those sell above than government fixed prices may be taken to task. He said that the government allowed duty free import of dairy and livestock machinery/equipment to encourage establishment of value added industry in livestock sector.