Every time the government tried to fix the price of a good or service, it unwittingly ended up offering a financial bonanza to the market syndicates. From potato to rawhide, from LPG to onions, from fertiliser to sugar, from saline to edible oil, there is rarely any success to speak of.
Says DG of Directorate of National Consumers' Right Protection
The price of potato went up further after the government on Thursday announced a price cap for the tuber and began market drives to check the soaring price of the tuber.
If wholesalers do not sell potatoes at Tk 27 a kg, the new price cap, the government will sell them, said AHM Shafikuzzaman, director general of the national consumer rights protection directorate, yesterday.
DG of national consumer rights protection directorate says
The commerce ministry’s price cap on onions, potatoes, and eggs barely made an impact on the runaway prices as shopkeepers in the capital have not complied with the order.
Opposition MPs came down hard on Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi yesterday for what they said was his failure to control the prices of essentials and take action against the market syndicates.
In a first, the government yesterday fixed the prices of eggs, onions and potatoes in its bid to contain the runaway food inflation, which hit a 12-year-high last month.
The Cabinet today cleared the draft of "Production, Storage, Transfer, Transportation, Supply, Distribution and Marketing of Food Products (Prevention of Prejudicial Activity) Act, 2023" keeping the provision of maximum lifetime imprisonment in the proposed law
MA Khair Chowdhury passed the Segunbagicha kitchen market disappointed.
Four major chicken producers yesterday announced that they will sell broiler chicken for Tk 190-195 a kg at the gates of their farms during Ramadan.
There are at least three laws and as many government bodies to protect the consumers from price manipulation, but it goes on unabated due to lax enforcement of the laws and a lack of coordination among the government organisations, say commodity experts.
Taking Tk 300 from her rickshaw-puller husband, Moni Begum went to Mirpur-11 kitchen market in the capital yesterday in the hope of buying some good food for her three children to eat on the first day of Ramadan.
Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) Mayor Md Atiqul Islam today said they would monitor the kitchen markets strictly to keep supply of daily essentials and its prices in a stable state during the month of Ramadan.
With Ramadan less than a week away, the high prices of chicken and meat are not likely to come down anytime soon.
Poultry operators say at an international poultry seminar in Dhaka
“Because of the cutting and polishing, rice loses its nutritional value and it is being done by importing machines spending crores of taka. The government will take steps soon to stop it.”