Home ›› 24 Aug 2021 ›› News
Sexagenarian Momtaz Uddin bought a sack of local variety lentil from a wholesaler at Dal Patti, the pulse zone, at Moulvi Bazar in the old town of Dhaka for retailing in his locality at Moghbazar.
He has other places for bulk purchase of commodities to retail at his Moghbazar shop but he prefers the Dal Patti for collecting pulse as the wholesalers there earned his confidence about the quality of products.
‘I need different types of pulse to retail as per the customers’ demand. I am procuring pulse from here for the past two decades as they are of good quality. I come to this market at least twice a week,” said Momtaz.
Once the Dal Patti acted as the prime supplier of pulse to every nook of the country but the glory is on the wane in recent times as many wholesale hubs have been established near growers’ end at places across the country.
Still, many retailers like Momtaz crowd Dal Patti to collect better quality pulses at the competitive price and the narrow alleys at the market remain bustling all the day.
The market is well known for decades for various types of local varieties of pulses like lentil, mung bean, black gram, grass pea etc but in recent years imported pulses rule the market.
Pulses imported from Australia, Canada, India, Nepal and Myanmar are also available at the market. Among them, red and brown lentil, pigeon pea, chickpea, split chickpea, split peas are prominent.
Bangladesh Dal Byabasayee Samity President Shafi Mahmud of the total sales at the market 35 per cent of pulses are of local varieties and the remaining 65 per cent are imported.
The market meets a significant part of the pulse demand of the capital and also supplies pulses across the whole country.
Glory of Dal Patti on the wane
When the centre of pulse business in the country was at Dal Patti, there were more than a hundred husking and grinding mills at Moulvi Bazar and most of them have been closed down. Now are only seven husking mills with only 200 labourers, said Shafi Mahmud, president of Bangladesh Dal Byabasayee Samity.
Now wholesale hubs are established at Munshigonj, Madaripur, Faridpur, Jashore, Pabna, Barishal, Natore, Rajshahi, and Narayanganj, said Mohammad Jahid, joint-secretary of Bangladesh Dal Byabasayee Samity.
Traders at Dal Patti collect pulse from growers in Faridpur, Madaripur, Munshiganj, Barishal, Jashore, Pabna, Natore and some other districts.
‘Once the growers from across the country used to send wholegrains of pulse to Dal Patti for husking and polishing and the final product was supplied to different parts of the country,” said Md Jahid Hossain, joint secretary of Bangladesh Dal Byabasayee Samity.
Now the situation got changed as husking mills are set up at the doorsteps of growers across the country and new wholesale hubs are also created, he said.
As business at Dal Patti is not on its wane, some of the market leaders are quitting the business and some also diverting business to others sectors. They attributed the decentralisation of the business to the losing steam of Dal Patti.
“Once we had five shops in the area and we reduced it to two as Dhaka is not the focal point of the business and it got decentralised across the country. Now I got involved with animal feed business and I am doing well than pulse business,” said Azim Dewan, proprietor of Azim Dewan Store.
Bangladesh Dal Byabasayee Samity president Shafi Mahmud said he extended his business to the cosmetics sector as the pulse business was not going well as before.
A business of tradition
Most of the wholesalers at Dal Patti inherited their family business.
Abdur Rahman, 38, took the helm of his father’s business after graduating from Dhaka College.
“I had opportunities to join any job but I preferred to pulse business as my father and grandfather were involved in the sector. We, eight sons of my father and one of my uncles, are now carrying the business,” he said.
Azizur Rahman, 69, owner of Aziz Corporation, said, “I got involved with pulse trading before the liberation war. My father was also well established in the business. I took the helm from my father and our next generation will do so after my expiry. This is how the pulses business is going on traditionally.”
Local variety pulses on high demand at high price
Despite the major supply of pulse is dependent on import, local varieties of lentil, mung bean split, black gram split, split peas, grass pea are in high demand and the buyers are ready to pay more for the local varieties.
Retailer Momtaz Uddin said despite the high price, consumers prefer local varieties of pulses to imported ones. “I have no option but collecting local varieties as the consumers demand more,” he said.
Millers at the market collect wholegrain pulse from Jashsore, Kushtia, Rajshahi, Faridpur, Natore and other parts of the country and process them at Dal Patti, said Md Shafiqul Islam, general secretary of Bangladesh Dal Byabasayee Samity.
