Rising Prices of Essentials: Misery piles up on the poor, middle class
Prices of many daily essentials, especially vegetables, have shot up further in the kitchen markets after transport workers enforced a strike and increased their fees in carrying goods to protest the recent fuel price hike.
The price of each vegetable has increased about 10 to 30 percent, according to the retailers.
Visiting several of these markets, this correspondent found that eggplants were being sold at Tk 80 per kg, about 30 percent higher than the previous price before the enforcement of the strike.
Beans were being sold at Tk140 per kg, while green chillies at Tk 140, tomatoes Tk 160, pointed gourd Tk 50, bitter goard at Tk 60 and asparagus beans at Tk 80-100 per kg.
The prices of vegetables have risen in the past two days, just after the announcement of the transport strike, said Abdul Alim, a vegetable seller in the capital's Shukhrabad Bazar.
This new increase in the prices have added to the miseries of pandemic-hit low- and fixed-income people, who were struggling with the previously skyrocketing prices already, said Md Al Amin, a private job holder in Dhanmondi area.
Habibur Rahman, a wholesaler in Karwan Bazar, said the price of everything has gone up but transport strike alone is not the only reason. The prices of vegetables have gone up mainly due to the depletion in stock.
"Once the winter vegetables hit the market, the prices may come back to normal."
Sukumar Roy, a vegetable farmer and wholesaler in Jashore, said the supply of vegetables in the local markets has decreased due to the offseason.
But the supply was very poor yesterday at Boro Bazar wholesale market in Jashore as farmers did not bring their vegetables at the markets due to the transport strike, he said.
Eggplants were being sold at Tk 70 per kg while the prices of other vegetables were Tk 20-40, Sukumar added.
"The only reason to worry now is that I cannot survive because of the skyrocketing prices of daily essentials. Literally, I can't survive now," Mohammad Alam, a private job holder in the Mohammadpur area.
Prices of almost all daily essentials, including sugar, flour, chicken, fish, cooking oil, and spices, have shot up in the kitchen market in the last one month.
The sugar was being sold still at Tk 80 per kg, Tk 5 higher than the government-fixed rate of Tk 74-75 a kg.
Consumers have been spending more on edible oil, and flour.
Coarse flour (ata) and fine flour are available at Tk 38-40 and Tk 48-52 a kg, which is 4 percent and 5 percent higher than a month before respectively. Onion was being sold at Tk 52-65 per kg, according to the state-run Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB).
A litre of bottled Soybean oil was being sold at Tk 150-160, around 48 percent high in a year, while the price of 5-litre bottle of soybean oil is about Tk 700-760.
Broiler chicken was being sold for Tk 150-170 a kg and Sonali variety for Tk 300-340 at different kitchen markets.
Shefali Begum, who works as a housemaid in Rajabazar area, said "I can no longer run my family with the money I get from working in people's homes. To survive in this situation, I have reduced the intake of all kinds of foods."
Several traders said if the ongoing transport strike is prolonged, the prices of the daily essentials will go beyond the reach of even middle-class people.
Ghulam Rahman, president of Consumers Association of Bangladesh, said in fact, as the supply of vegetable increases in November, prices fall and the prices go within the reach of the common man in December every year.
But the recent rise in fuel prices has created an increased risk in the market. As the cost of transportation will increase, there are doubts as to whether consumers will get the benefits of winter vegetables this time around, he said.
"Rising oil prices will have a huge negative impact on commodity prices due to rising transport and production costs. And people will continue to suffer," he added.
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