Prices of some vegetables have witnessed a further hike in Dhaka's kitchen markets on Sunday compared with Saturday, adding woes to the consumers.
The items that saw a hike of Tk 4 to Tk 10 per kg include beans, bitter gourds, brinjals and radishes.
However, the prices of onion, gingers, garlic, broiler chickens, eggs, sugar, pulses, edible oil, potatoes and other essentials have remained static. Moreover, rice prices are also high, maintaining their previous trend.
On the other hand, the price of carrots also saw a little decline while the sonali and the Pakistani chickens mark slight fall.
A vegetable vendor Maksedul Islam at Adabor Kitchen Market told The Financial Express that prices of some vegetables like beans, bitter gourds, brinjals and radishes went up by Tk 4 to Tk 10 per kg.
He bought five kg of beans at Tk 450 from a wholesale market located in Mirpur on Sunday though the price was Tk 400 on Saturday, he said.
He was retailing beans at 100-110 per kg, the vendor said.
Apart from this, the price of bitter gourd has increased by Tk 20 per five kg in the wholesale market, the vegetable vendor said, adding that he is selling at Tk 85 per kg at the retail level.
He also bought five kg of long brinjals at Tk 200 on the day, but the price of long brinjal was Tk 150 on Saturday.
Moksedul bought five kg of radish at Tk 200 while the price was Tk 180 the previous day. He is also selling radish at Tk 50 to Tk 60 per kg.
Islam bought five kg of carrot at Tk 600 in wholesale price while it was Tk 580 on Saturday. He was selling carrot at Tk 140 per kg, the vendor mentioned.
He was retailing green chili at Tk 220 to Tk 230 per kg.
The prices of tomatoes and snake gourds are Tk 700 and Tk 250 respectively per five kg, according to him.
When talking to this correspondent, he said he was selling tomatoes at Tk 130-Tk140 per kg in retail while the snake gourds at Tk 60.
Some vegetable vendors at Adabor and Mohammadpur Krishi Market along with some mobile vendors also echoed the same price level.
Both traders and vendors blamed the soaring prices on flood situations in different parts of the country along the Covid-19 crisis.
A vested interest group is likely manipulating the prices of essentials, taking advantage of such situations and creating artificial crises in the market, they believe.
Mizan, a wholesaler at Mohammadpur Krishi Market, said the prices of onion are ranging between Tk 63 and Tk 70 per kg wholesale while those of ginger (imported) and local garlic are Tk 120 and Tk 50 respectively.
Akash, a retailer at Mohammadpur Krishi Market, told The FE that the prices of some spices like ginger and garlic remained static at present.
Imported Burmese variety of onion was sold at Tk 52-Tk 54 per kg at the capital‘s Shyambazar Wholesale Market while the imported Indian onion was sold at Tk 52-Tk 53 per kg, he pointed out.
Hybrid local variety onion was sold at Tk 52-Tk 53 in wholesale level while the original local variety onion at Tk 63 to Tk 65, he said.
The imported onion was sold at Tk 58-Tk 60 per kg in retail markets, he stated.
Hybrid local onion and local original variety onion were sold at Tk 65 and Tk 70 respectively, he added.
Sohel, a proprietor at New Bismillah Broiler at Mohammadpur Krishi Market, told The FE on Sunday that he was selling broiler chicken at Tk 170-Tk180 a kg.
Sonali and Pakistani chicken were being sold at Tk 308-Tk 315 per kg on Saturday, he said, adding that a dozen of eggs were sold at Tk 110.
Jabayer Hossain, a proprietor at Bikrampur Trading Corporation at Mohammadpur Krishi Market, told the FE that sugar was selling at Tk 80-85 (loose) and at Tk 84-Tk 88 (packed) per kg.
However, he claimed that the price of imported onion saw a decline of Tk 5, compared to Saturday’s price.
He was selling such a variety of onion at Tk 60 per kg while it was Tk 65 on Saturday, Hossain added.
However, the government fixed maximum retail prices of the sweetener at Tk 74-Tk 75 a kg on September 9.
On Wednesday, the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) resumed selling the essentials at subsidised prices from Wednesday ahead of Durga Puja, the biggest religious festival of the country's Hindu community aimed at keeping them stable in the markets.
The OMS programme will continue across the country until October 28.
