Despite taking a set of measures, the government has failed to rein in the spiralling prices of daily commodities in the kitchen markets. Recently, the commerce ministry has fixed the prices of three items--potato, local onion and egg—to tame their prices while government agencies are conducting drives to control inflation and mitigate the sufferings of consumers.
But all these efforts apparently failed to bring any positive impact in the kitchen markets, on the contrary, prices of red lentil, ginger and broiler chicken witnessed a fresh hike in the last week.
Besides, most of the daily commodities like rice, oil and sugar are being sold at high prices which increased earlier. Fish, meat and vegetables are also available at considerably high rates imposing acute sufferings to the low and middle-income community who were already grappling to balance their family expenses.
A number of consumers and traders at Mirpur-1 and Karwan Bazar in the capital expressed these facts while talking to The Business Post on Friday.
After visiting these two kitchen markets of the capital, The Business Post correspondent saw no significant decrease in prices of daily essentials in the last week.
Although prices slipped slightly after the drives of the Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection (DNCRP) in reality, traders who brought the goods at high rates from the wholesalers; are not selling them at low prices. As a result, the government’s step by fixing prices of goods didn’t cause any effective changes in the market prices.
In particular, the supply of potatoes and local onions decreased in the domestic markets while the prices of these goods should fall after the government measure. Explaining the cause, traders said they would bring new products after selling their existing goods that were previously brought at high prices.
Farooq Hossain, a seller of the Mirpur-1 market said that prices of red lentils increased by Tk 5 and ginger Tk 10 per kg in the last week. There is no change in the prices of the already increased commodities. Especially prices of rice and oil remained stable. Although the government fixed rates for potatoes and onions, it is not followed at the wholesale markets. Potatoes were sold at Tk 48 to Tk 50 per kg depending on the quality on Friday and local onion at Tk 80 to 90 per kg.
On September 14, the Commerce Ministry fixed the retail price of potatoes at Tk 35 to Tk 36 and onion at Tk 64 to Tk 65 per kg. The Ministry also fixed the Tk 48 price of 4 pieces of egg. After that, the ministry allowed the import of 4 crore eggs, yet soaring prices remained unchanged in the kitchen markets. Prices of per hali (four pieces) egg were still nearly Tk 50. Due to this, the ministry allowed the import of another 6 crore pieces of eggs on Thursday.
Besides, the ministry also fixed Tk 169 per litre of soybean oil but the new oil is yet to reach the markets. The price of loose sugar was fixed at Tk 130 per kg but at retail level prices hovered around Tk 135 to Tk 140.
Moreover, broiler chicken prices are rising amid import measures to control egg prices. Broiler chickens were being sold between Tk 180 to Tk 190 per kg with an increase of Tk 10 in a week.
The prices of golden chicken remained slightly higher at Tk310 to Tk320 per kg. The beef was sold at Tk 750 to Tk 800 per kg, while goat meat was sold at Tk 1,000 to Tk 1,100 per kg.
Among fishes, Rui and Katol fishes were available at Tk 350 to Tk 500 per kg, while farmed Pangas and Telapia were sold at Tk 250 per kg.
Among vegetables, brinjal and bitter gourd were available at Tk 70 to Tk 80 per kg and other vegetables like pointed gourd (patol), Sponge gourd (dhundol) and Angled luffa (jhinga) were sold between Tk50 to Tk 70 per kg. On the other hand, tomatoes and carrots are being sold at Tk 100 to Tk 140 per kg.
