In a bid to control the skyrocketing price of essential goods Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), the authority responsible for keeping the price of essential under check, urged the government to import vital food items like different pulses, onion and oil along with other essentials to ease the current market situation.

Talking with several wholesale and retail vendors at the Karwan Bazar chicken market, one of the biggest wholesale kitchen markets of the city, revealed that the proposed policy of importing goods is overrated and would not be as effective as the authorities think.

Wholesale traders alleged that there is no deficiency in the supply of essentials domestically and the problem lies somewhere else.

"I was surprised to know that the government is planning to import more goods as there is scarcely any shortage of supplies," said Joinal Uddin, a wholesaler of vegetable items at Karwan Bazar.

"We sell aubergines at a wholesale price of around Tk 6 to the retailers, and surprisingly enough, we read in the newspapers that the same aubergine is sold at a retail price of around Tk 16 to Tk 20 to the consumers. So, obviously the problem lies some where else," he added.

According to Abdul Matin, chairman if Karwan Bazar Kachabazar Arat Malik Samity, the only thing the government can do that can effectively improve the whole situation in the long run would be to slash the price of fertilisers.

"Importing essential items may ease things for a short while, but they should take more tangible measures in the long run. Decreasing price of fertilisers should be an effective step under the current circumstances," said Matin.

"Currently there is a huge scarcity of fertilisers and the farmers actually have to purchase fertilisers at a price if around Tk 700 to Tk 800 for each sack," he added.

While the government seems to be in a dilemma on how to keep the price of essentials under check, the current status of market price of daily essentials have been fluctuating lately, said vendors.

Talking to several traders revealed that retail price of items such as aubergine, cucumber and tomato came down today while price of rest of the goods seem to be unaffected.

"Compared to the past few days the price of vegetables has somewhat dwindled today as import of vegetables have been good lately," said Mosaddeque Hossain, a trader from Karwan Bazar.

"Yesterday cucumber was about Tk 13 per kg which came down to Tk 10 today, the price of aubergine also went down as it is being sold at Tk 10 today which was Tk 12 yesterday," he added.

Broiler chickens at the chicken market were being sold at Tk 100 per kg and layer chickens at Tk 85 per kg. At the fish market lobsters were being sold at Tk 800 to 900 per kg while the wholesale price was Tk 750 to 780.

According to rice traders, prices of miniket and najirshail are Tk 30 and Tk 26 respectively.

According to Joinal Hossain, a rice trader the government should take steps to give subsidy and allow licensed shops to purchase rice directly from the governmental warehouses.

According to Abdul Matin, chairman of Karwan Bazar Kachabazar Arat Malik Samity the major explanation behind the gradual decrease in the amount of market goods is directly related to the shortage of cultivable land.

"The housing companies have filled thousands of bighas of lands in the city outskirts, which have cut down our supplies of vegetables and other food items by almost half as they used to be one of our major sources," said Matin.

"TV and newspapers say that the price increases are directly related to transport, fuel and other costs but these costs will always be there as to sell the goods you actually have to transport them to the consumers. So the government should try and take steps to decrease the price of tangential items such as fertilisers, seeds and such", he added.