Staff Reporter, Kishoreganj :
The price of daily essential commodities continues to rise in the market making middle and lower income group of people life exhansted.
Almost all daily essentials price have gone beyond the purchasing capacity people as recently the price of edible oil, pulses, egg, spices, chickens and vegetables are also getting costlier.
Visiting several kitchen and wholesale of Kishoreganj’s markets on Sunday it was found that bottled soybean oil was selling at up to Tk155 a litre, the highest retail price till now . It was available at around Tk100 even a few months ago.
Potato, onion, garlic, ginger, wheat, flour, lentil, and broiler chicken are also being sold at higher prices than those of last week, causing both middle-and low-income groups to suffer.
Abdus Salam a resident in Puran Thana said as the winter is going by, it seems like the markets started to turn “hotter”.
“The rice prices have been unstable with a rising trend for the past two months. The same situation was prevailing with other everyday essentials in the market,” he said.
Rice and soybean oil, he claimed, are no longer affordable for ordinary people.
“Even vegetables, flour, wheat, onion, garlic, potato and pulses are also getting pricier,”
As a result, the people from lower classes facing hardship to lead their life forcing themselves to stand behind at the TCB truck and to visit the lower price market. A TCB truck was parked at Purankachari, where about at least two hundred people were in long queue and waiting for buying products.
According to the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB), the prices of soybean oil are 19-26% higher than those recorded last year.
Ramzan is one and half months away, the government should increase the supply of soybean oil, thus, helping bring down the prices, said businesses community leader in Kishoreganj Abdul Hakim.
“Though the prices of soybean oil increased in the country in line with the international market, the supply has plummeted in the domestic market,” he added.
Kishoreganj Press Club convener and senior CAB leader Adv Lutfur Rashid Rana said the government failed to monitor the kitchen market effectively.
The authorities are not punishing those responsible for the unusual price hike of essentials. As a result many traders feel encouraged about manipulating the prices.
CAB, Kishoreganj’s Vice President and Mohila Awami District Secretary Bilkis Begum further suggested that strict action to control proper kitchen market monitoring and enforcement needed that could help the consumers to tolerate this crisis.
