The government has asked the Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection (DNCRP) to strengthen its monitoring on the edible oil market aiming to contain unusual price hike of the key cooking ingredient, officials said.
To this effect, the commerce ministry has recently instructed the agency to take necessary steps including stern action against price manipulators.
"Currently, existing monitoring teams of DNCRP are carrying out monitoring activities to arrest unusual price hike of the widely-consumed key cooking ingredient across the country including capital city Dhaka. The commerce ministry is also monitoring the edible oil market," a high official said.
The prices of edible oil remained high in the market, depriving the consumers, especially the commoners, of breathing space as they had already dug deep into their pockets to meet the rising cost of living.
Even edible oil prices also remained high last week as it was earlier. The maximum price of soybean oil was Tk 130 per one-litre jar.
Loose soybean oil was retailed at Tk 110-Tk 116 a litre on Friday.
A five-litre jar of soybean oil was Tk 570-Tk 600 on the day. Super palm oil was sold at Tk 103-Tk 106 a litre.
Current edible oil prices are 14-27 per cent higher than that of 2020.
