People of low and middle-income in Jhenaidah are facing hardship due to excessive price hike of vegetables and other daily products. Moreover, the price keeps increasing every day.
Most of the people who go to kitchen markets, return home also empty handed after seeing the excessive prices. Although a section of political people blamed the businessmen for their alleged syndicate, there is actually no solution to the problems yet.
When this correspondent visited a weekly kitchen market at Shailkupa, the largest weekly market in Jhenaidah, it was seen that each kilogram of eggplant was being sold at Tk 120 to Tk 140, mukhikochu (aurum) at Tk 80, radish at Tk 70 to Tk 80, gourd at Tk 90 to Tk 100, bitter gourd at Tk 120 to Tk 140, sweet pumpkin at Tk 70, green chili at Tk 400 and ladies finger at Tk 100. Each bundle of red and green amaranth was being sold at Tk 10to Tk 15, basil at Tk 25 to Tk 30, a piece of jalichalkumra at Tk 60 to Tk 80 and a piece of pumpkin at Tk 80 to Tk 100. But the price of all these vegetables was at least 50 to 70 percent less around two weeks ago.
Shamsul Alam, a government official, Saurav Sheikh, a small trader and Sadhana Rani Saha, a school teacher who went to the kitchen market on Saturday noon said they were at a loss seeing the curent prices of the vegetables. They said they could buy only 35 to 40 percent of the vegetables that they planned to buy.
Shamirul Islam and Ahmed Mollah, two vegetables farmers at the market said most of the vegetables’ plots were badly damaged as there was heavy and incessant rainfall in August and September. A good number of the plants died and the remaining plants did not give much yield as the flowers were hampered. It might take at least three to four weeks before new vegetables comes in the field, assuming that there will be no natural calamities in near future. The price will ultimately come down after that, farmers Shamirul Islam and Ahmed Mollah said.
Not only the vegetables, but the price of eggs increased as well, even though the government warned the traders to sale products at a reasonable price among the consumers. The warning was totally ignored by the traders and they were selling eggs at an abnormally high price. A case of 30 pieces of eggs was selling at Tk 405 to Tk 410 while it should not exceed Tk 360 to Tk 370. The price of edible soybean oil was also high for last 10 days. Each two-liter bottles of soybean oil was selling at Tk 170 to Tk175 while it should have been Tk 160 to Tk 165.
Sasti Chandara Roy, Deputy Director (DD) of Jhenaidah Department of Agricultural extension (DAE) said the farmers of the district witnessed about 300 millimetre of rainfall in August and September which damaged the vegetables and other crop plots badly. As the rain is almost over, the plots will yield vegetables naturally in the upcoming early winter and the price will drop down as there will be sufficient yield on the crop lands.
