Many of the key essential commodities witnessed a further hike last week, making consumers dig deeper into their pockets just to stay afloat.
Chicken, meat, fish, pulses, edible oil, sugar, egg and vegetables showed a fresh hike last week, adding to the woes of the consumers already hit hard by the rising commodity prices.
Most of the essentials further witnessed a 5.0-16 per cent hike, according to the trading sources.
Broiler chicken price increased to Tk 145-150 and Sonali/Pakistani varieties to Tk 260-280 a kg - Tk 10-30 a kg hike.
All kinds of fish showed a Tk 30-100 a kg hike which traders attributed to low catch of riverine fish, including Hilsa.
Hilsa was selling at Tk 650-1,450 a kg, depending on size.
High cost of riverine fish also has an impact on the cultured fisheries market.
Prices of cultured Ruhi, Katla, Koi and Tilapia witnessed a rise of Tk 30-50 per kg.
Cultured Ruhi was sold at Tk 260-450 a kg, based on size.
Coarse and medium lentil prices showed a further hike by Tk 10 a kg, as sold at Tk 90-105 per kg on Thursday.
Edible oil in loose forms, which include super palm, normal palm and soybean oil, increased by Tk 5.0-6.0 a litre again last week.
Loose soybean prices shot up to Tk 132-136 a litre, while super palm to Tk 124-125 a litre.
Sugar showed further hike by Tk 2.0 a kg and egg by Tk 5.0 per dozen in the last seven days.
Six kinds of vegetables and most of the leafy prices rose by Tk 5.0-10 per kg or bunch. Traders attributed it to the ongoing rain and floods in many districts.
Brinjal was selling at Tk 70-80 a kg, while pointed gourds, sponge, ridge, teasel, snake and bitter gourds were selling at Tk 45-60 a kg.
The yard-long beans were being sold at Tk 70-80 a kg, cucumber at Tk 50-50 and eddo at Tk 50 per kg.
The prices of leafy ranged between Tk 12 and Tk 35 a bunch.
In addition, tomatoes were selling at Tk 110-120 per kg and carrots at Tk 100-110 a kg.
However, rice prices remained static maintaining previous high, as coarse rice was sold at Tk 48-50 per kg, medium variety at Tk 54-58 and the finer one at Tk 64-78 a kg in the city markets.
Contacted, Humayun Kabir Bhuiyan, secretary of the Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB), said the sufferings of the common people, lower middle-class in particular, had increased further due to the commodity price hike, which hit them at a time when their income had already declined during the pandemic.
Import duties on sugar and cooking oil should be removed, suggested Mr Humayun, adding that the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) should expand its OMS (open market sales) operations across the country so that poor people could buy essentials at subsidised prices.
He also urged the food ministry to further increase its rice and flour distribution operations, in order to give common people some sort of relief.
"And random market monitoring is needed to prevent any kind of artificial price hike," the CAB secretary added.
