THE New Nation on Sunday reported that the soaring prices of essential commodities are causing huge sufferings to the low and middle-income groups of people. Of the commodities, price of onion is the highest, followed by winter vegetables and eggs. Quoting retailers, the report also said that despite different measures taken by the government, onion price is not coming down. The local brand of onion was selling at Tk 100-105 per kg, Indian onion at Tk 90 per kg while the onion imported from Myanmar at Tk 70-90 per kg.
Besides, per kg chilli was selling at Tk 100 which was Tk 60 in the previous week. Tomato was selling at Tk 110-120 a kg, Bean at Tk 100-120 per kg, Brinjal and Bitter gourd at Tk 60-70 per kg, Parble and sponge gourd at Tk 50-60 per Kg, Raddish at Tk 35-40, Carrot Tk 70-80 per kg. On the other hand, potato was selling at Tk 25 per kg, Green papaya at Tk 25 per kg and small size Cauliflower was selling at Tk 30-35 each. Vegetable traders said the supply of the winter vegetable is comparatively less in the kitchen markets as the harvesting time is yet to come. The price of broiler eggs also increased over last week. The item was selling at Tk. 110-120 per dozen, up from last week’s Tk. 90-100 a dozen.
The business syndicates defying government’s monitoring reportedly playing tricks to make volatile the onion market again though different agencies have been conducting mobile courts almost everyday in different parts of the country to keep the prices in a tolerable level. The same is happening now centering the winter vegetables. The city people usually buy the items 3-4 times higher prices in comparison to its production costs. What’s most frustrating is that — the farmers, who produce the vegetables, are often unable to make any profit margin to minimize their production costs. Most of the money goes to middlemen’s pocket. It’s very difficult for us to understand how the price of any item shoots up so quickly if there is an effective market monitoring system. We must say it’s simply a man-made disorder.
