The Department of Supply Management will continue its market inspections in the Kathmandu Valley over the Dashain holidays too as wrongdoing has spread due to weak monitoring, it said.

According to the supply system regulatory body, unscrupulous merchants tend to take advantage of the festival shopping rush to overcharge customers, create artificial shortages of food products and pass off shoddy goods. It said market inspections would be conducted aggressively to ensure that customers are not cheated.

Apart from charging arbitrary prices, many traders have been found to be selling adulterated products.

Selling date expired food items and even the despicable practice of selling the meat of dead animals occur during festival season, the department said.

Director at the department Laxman Shrestha said they would be conducting market inspections even during the six-day-long Dashain holiday that begins on September 27. “In addition, we are mobilizing a special squad that will act instantly on complaints received from consumers,” Shrestha said.

Currently, the department has deployed four teams to carry out market inspections daily. On Wednesday, the teams checked 21 shops, including 15 food stores and six meat shops. They destroyed a large quantity of date expired food items and meat that could pose a serious threat to public health. According to Shrestha, the department destroyed more than 200 kg of inedible meat last month.

On Thursday, a monitoring team from the Ministry of Livestock Development seized 28 dead goats being carried in a passenger bus that had arrived from Nepalgunj.

Officials said that the animals had died due to suffocation after being crammed into the luggage compartment of the bus. Smugglers had hidden the goats as it is illegal to carry animals on passenger vehicles.

Meat worth more than Rs1.30 billion is expected to be consumed in the Valley during the Dashain celebrations. According to the Nepal Livestock Traders Association, it sold 55,000 goats and mountain goats in the Valley last year.

Nepal imported live goats valued at Rs1.93 billion from India in the last fiscal year, the Department of Customs said.

A total of 30,494 goats worth Rs218.32 million entered the country between mid-July and mid-August this fiscal year.