Fuel price hike hits kitchen markets

Essential commodities, especially vegetables, became dearer in Dhaka’s kitchen markets on Friday, riding on the back of a countrywide transport strike triggered by the fuel price hike.

Traders claimed that the hike in diesel price, coming into effect from Thursday, directly affected the kitchen markets as the supply failed to meet the demand.

After visiting city’s kitchen markets on Friday, The Business Post found that prices of some major vegetables including green chilli, brinjal, ladies finger, cauliflower, red amaranth, bottle gourd, tomato went up.

On the other hand, the prices of onion, broiler chicken, sonalika chicken, egg, and few other commodity items remained comparatively stable for past couple of days.

A vegetable vendor, Karim Hossain at Mirpur-1’s kitchen market, said that compared to the last week, the prices of most vegetables witnessed a hike of Tk 20 to Tk 30 on Friday.

Besides, the vegetable traders explained that the supply chains of vegetable markets were disrupted due to the indefinite strike sponsored by the transport owners and workers protesting against the hike of fuel prices.

The sellers said that prices of the necessary commodities will spike rapidly if the countrywide strike continues for a few more days.

In the kitchen markets on Friday, one kg tomato was available at Tk 155 to Tk 160, green chilli was being sold at Tk 120 per kg, brinjal at Tk 100 to Tk 80 per kg, ladies finger at Tk 55 to Tk 60 per kg, cauliflower at Tk 50 per piece and a middle size of bottle gourd was being sold at Tk 50 to Tk 60. Besides, prices of other types of vegetables also remain skyscraping adding woes to the consumers.

On the other hand, one kg broiler chicken was available at Tk 165-170 which was Tk 160-165 last week. Besides, sonalika variety was sold at Tk 285 to Tk 290 which was Tk 290-295 per kg in the previous week.

Apart from that, the prices of onion remained same compared to the last week. A kilogram of local onion was sold at Tk 60-65 while the Indian variety was sold between Tk 45 and Tk 50 at several kitchen markets in the capital.