Vegetables, onion and garlic became pricier last week again increasing sufferings of the consumers, especially the commoners.
Most of the Robi (winter) season vegetables, including cauliflower, cabbage, carrot, radish, seasonal brinjal, local bean, tomato and coriander leaf increased by 12-40 per cent in one week, according to kitchen market sources.
Tomato, carrot and local bean were sold at Tk 30- 60 per kilogram (kg) on Thursday.
Supply of cauliflower witnessed a slowdown and was sold at Tk 35-50 a piece at different markets on the day, a Taka-15 hike per piece in one week.
Early summer vegetables including snake gourd, bitter gourd and pointed gourd were sold at Tk 50- 65 a kg.
Md Mursalin, a vegetable wholesaler at Rayer Bazar-Beribandh in the capital, told the FE that prices of vegetables including cauliflower and cabbage increased amid a shrinking supply.
He said cauliflower production has been severely hampered by untimely rain in key growing zones.
Prices of the winter crop may increase further in the coming weeks amid decreasing supply, he added.
However, the President of Uttar Karwan Bazar Wholesalers Welfare Association, Md Hafez Khan, told the FE that vegetables prices may start to decline from the next month with increasing supply of seasonal summer crops.
Onion prices witnessed a Taka-2.0 per kg hike and the cooking ingredient was sold at Tk 26-30 (local) a kg on the day. The imported varieties of onion were selling at Tk 22-26.
Both local and imported garlic, another major cooking ingredient, showed a 12 and 25 per cent rise respectively in the last seven days.
The imported varieties were selling at Tk 100-120 and the local ones Tk 70-80 per kg.
Contacted, Shyambazar-based importer Narayan Chandra Saha said the prices of onion witnessed a 0.5-1.0 per kg hike in the last week at wholesale level following a normal market trend.
He said garlic prices witnessed a hike amid rising import costs recently.
Import cost of garlic rose to $900-$950 a tonne last month from $750-$800 a tonne in December, he said.
He said local production has also been hampered for unfavourable climatic condition last month which pushed up prices.
The Consumers Associat-ion of Bangladesh (CAB) Secretary, Humayun Kabir Bhuiyan, said the prices of most of essential items started to rise with the beginning of this year. He said rice, meat, chicken and fish are much higher now than a year ago.
Rising costs of cultured fish and broiler chicken is hurting the limited-income consumers, he mentioned.
He viewed that market monitoring should be increased to combat any artificial price hike in the coming weeks as the holy month of Ramadan will start from the first week of May.
