After the announcement of the Prime Minister’s package to the Utility Store Corporation, the collective sales by the stores went up by 85 percent in January 2021, as compared to the same period in the previous year.
According to a document available with ProPakistani, the sales of utility stores increased have increased by 4 percent monthly.
The document stated that the sales of utility stores in January 2021 were recorded at Rs. 8.97 billion. Whereas in January 2020, the sales of utility stores were recorded at Rs. 4.86 billion.
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The sales figure for January is also up from the sales of utility stores recorded in December 2020, at Rs 8.65 billion.
Ghee and cooking oil were among the highest sales items of the store with Rs. 2.72 billion in sales, while sales of sugar were recorded at Rs. 1.35 billion.
Flour sales stood at Rs. 874 million, while the volume of general sales items at utility stores was Rs. 3.68 billion.
Islamabad zone recorded the highest sales, worth Rs. 1.57 billion, while the lowest sales were documented in the Quetta zone at Rs. 0.3123 billion.
The document also showed that right now, USC has goods worth Rs. 9.54 billion available for sale in stores across the country.
The PM relief package for USC has been in effect since January 8, 2020. The subsidized food items under the package include wheat flour, rice, sugar, pulses, and ghee.
According to a statement of USC, the recorded turnover for the calendar year 2020 stood around Rs. 100 billion as compared to only Rs. 10 billion in turnover for the calendar year 2019.
On achieving this benchmark, Umer Lodhi, Managing Director USC, said that USC is now an almost debt-free and self-sustained corporation.
He said that USC now intends to carry out a highly progressive restructuring with a consolidated view to provide a customer-centric approach and is expected to acquire another milestone with a turnover of Rs. 150 billion in the fiscal year 2021 (that is until June 2022).
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From a loss-making entity to one of the leading contributors in national exchequer, USC ensured food security through an uninterrupted supply of staple food items during the year.
USC contributed Rs. 8.564 billion in national exchequer during the fiscal year 2019-20 as compared to Rs. 1.476 billion in taxes for the fiscal year 2018-19.
USC served 45.77 million households, during the year, through its retail network of 4,881 stores in rural and urban areas. The corporation is providing financial relief to the people of Pakistan through Prime Minister’s Relief Package since January 2020.
