No one can buy more than one kg of onion: Habiganj DC

Consumers in Habiganj won't be allowed to buy more than a kilogramme of onions at a time, said the district administration today.

The decision has been taken in a special meeting to rein in the spiralling prices of the key cooking ingredient, reports our Moulvibazar correspondent.

The meeting was held in the office of Habiganj Deputy Commissioner Devi Chanda this afternoon to stabilise the price of onion and other essential products.

Wholesale traders won't be allowed to buy more than one or two sacks of onions at a time while retail buyers can purchase a maximum of one kg of onion, DC Devi Chanda told this correspondent over phone after the meeting.

Sellers must sell a minimum of 250 grams of onion, she added.

The DC said the price of onion at wholesale level cannot exceed Tk 120 and the retail price cannot exceed Tk 125.

According to traders, the district daily demand for onion is 30 metric tons. However, the district has two days stock of the kitchen essential.

Meanwhile, the district administration of Thakurgaon and Barishal has conducted mobile courts to force local onion traders to sell the kitchen item at fair price.

In Chattogram, Deputy Commissioner Abul Bashar Mohammed Farkhuzzaman today urged the retailers and traders of onions in the port city to make lower profit and asked them not to store the vegetable.

On Sunday, onion prices shot up by more than Tk 100 per kg to Tk 240 overnight following India's announcement of an export ban on the vegetable from December 8 to March next year.

India is a major source of the key cooking ingredient for Bangladesh.

The government has taken the initiative to import some 52,000 tonnes of onion from India against the LCs that were opened earlier before the ban was slapped by the neighbouring country in a bid to curtail the price of the kitchen essential in local markets.

The Ministry of Commerce has already sent a letter to the Bangladesh High Commission to take the necessary action in this regard.