Staff Reporter :
After increase of cooking oil prices, the onion market started becoming volatile as prices witnessed Tk10-15 per Kg hike over the past two days, despite having no supply shortage.
The price hike of the two key cooking ingredients has put the consumers, already reeling from Covid-19 fallout, under more financial pressure.
The import of onions from neighboring India has been stopped since the expiration of the period for approving onion imports from the country.
The onion prices have increased to Tk 45 from Tk 30 per Kg at the retail stages over the last two days, consumers alleged, expressing extreme dissatisfaction with the increase of prices of the essential commodities.
Retailers have said that they are selling at the increased price as the prices of onions have gone up at wholesale level. “I am selling good domestic grown onion at Tk 45 and imported Indian onion at Tk 40 per Kg. Even, two days ago, it was sold at Tk 30-35 per Kg. So, it may increase further, if import remains stop,” Anisuzzan, a retailer in Jatrabari area, told The New Nation on Thursday. “We have no alternative way but to sell onion at the increased price as the wholesalers are selling high,” the retailer said. Mohammad Majed, an onion importer at Shyambazar in the capital, said, “We are not able to open letter of credit (LC) as onion imports are not allowed at the moment.” “However, there is no onion crisis in the markets,” he said.
Protecting the interest of the farmers of the country, the Department of Agricultural Extension is not allowing the import of new onions and after spreading the news, the traders have increased the onion prices.
The consumers have expressed their frustrations as onion is one more item added in list of essential commodities already
witnessing a hike in the recent days. They have urged the government to intensify its monitoring of the market to help prevent the unscrupulous traders from making unethical profits by selling onion at irrationally higher prices.
They also suggested increasing the open market sale (truck-sale) of the state-run Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) in the capital.
“We are already exhausted due to the high prices of other essential commodities. We want the government to take immediate measures to check artificial price hikes and protect the consumers,” said Rabeya Akter, a private service holder.
Domestic production meets most of the demand for onion in the country. In last 2020-21 fiscal year, the country has produced 22.64 lakh tonnes of onion, which is around 80 per cent of the demand and the rest was met by the imported onions.
