S.A Shofiee, Sylhet :
Iftar items at restaurants and roadside makeshift shops in different points of the Sylhet city are selling at exorbitant prices this Ramzan compared to those last year.
The iftar items are prepared with adulterated food stuffs and toxic chemicals and color dyes.
On the first three days of the month of fasting, there was seen huge rush of customers for inftar items to the markets from 2.00 pm. But the customers were dissatisfied with the items, which were found mostly of low quality.
Iftar items on sale at over 150 points in the city are breaking all the previous records of prices.
Yet there is no market monitoring by any government or non-government agencies in the city.
The traders charge the prices of the items according to their whim.
‘I bought half of my required items at high prices,’ said Selim Ahmed, a resident of Jallarpar area.
Sale of iftar items at different restaurants and roadside shops in the city was found dull on the first day of Ramzan this year on the back of the sharply increased prices.
A team of the Sylhet unit of Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB) handed over a memorandum to the deputy commissioner of the district yesterday demanding strong measures to curt abnormal prices of the iftar items, checking adulteration and using chemicals, dyes and colors to save the consumers from exposure of health hazards.
Not only the cooked Iftar items, but also fruits chosen for Iftari like dates, mangoes, pineapples, papayas and bananas are found in the city markets at least 70 percent higher price than previous year.
Most of these fruits are also artificially ripened by using a carcinogenic (cancer inducing) chemicals like ethylene oxide, calcium carbide and other toxic dyes,
Ruhul Faruk, a CAB organiser of the district, said some of the traders, however, are selling their fruits claiming them as chemical fee.
Sylhet district administration sources said the administration formed 12 mobile court teams from market price monitoring and control adulteration of food items from first day of Ramadan.
During a visit to different ifter shops in the city, this correspondent found that 100 grams of fried gram were selling for Tk20 against Tk10 last year.
The price of brinjal jumped to Tk90 from Tk35 per kilogram and potato to Tk 23 from Tk 17 within a week.
So minimising the size, a piece of beguni (brinjal fitter) is selling for Tk10 while its price was Tk 5 only a year back.
Alur Chop (potato fritter), Kofir Chop (cauliflower fritter), were priced at Tk 10 per piece compared to Tk5 last year.
A piece of big size jilapi was selling for Tk12 against last year’s Tk10.
Anis, a seller of a roadside iftar shop at Zindabazar Road in the city, said that iftar items have become dearer as the prices of their ingredients, including vegetables, cooking oil and pulses, have gone up sharply.
High production cost has pushed up the prices of iftar items and led to subsequent fall in sale, he said.
The number of makeshift shops and restaurants selling iftar items is also much lower this year compared to that of the last year, said Anamul Haque, market inspector of Sylhet City Corporation.
