Unbridled prices of day to day essentials such as potatoes, eggs, chili pepper, food stuffs and vegetables have become abnormally high entailing untold miseries upon common people. A strong demand has surfaced from the common people of the country that constant vigilance and monitoring must be reinforced to give poor people solace and dishonest money-monger traders to bring to book.

• Whims & recklessness of money-monger-traders entail untold suffering upon common people.
• Constant vigilance urgently necessary to bring orders in the markets.

Abdul Khaleque Khandker

There is no denying the fact that the common people are simply groaning under the burden of the prices of the essential commodities in the market. The record anomalies in the prices of the essentials are recorded this year in the kitchen markets ranging from chili pepper, eggs, onions, garlic, and edible oil to most necessary common culinary item, potatoes. The consumer rights groups are keeping vigilante eye on the prices of the essentials as it is learnt and passed rigid directives to sell the essential items at a set price yet, these set prices are being violated everywhere making the common buyers baffled and helpless. For example, potatoes, a most common of our day to day culinary item is now selling at Tk. 50/ or more. But to what extent this exorbitant price of potatoes such as Tk. 50 is justifiable? In a survey it is found as crystal clear that potatoes were purchased at Tk. 10/ from the potato growers for the cold storage. These potatoes are now being released to the markets, but how does the 10 taka a kg potato come to 50 taka a kg is a question now in the lips of common people of the country. The survey says, with all costs the 10 taka potatoes a kg may come to 20 taka but under no circumstances, potato price should reach to 50 taka a kg. It is a simple instance shown in the case of potatoes whereas; such instances are applicable for other culinary items.

The above anomalies in the buying and selling prices of the common necessaries suggest us to believe that there go a big deception, trick and knavery with the poor countrymen in the sale of most necessary food items by making their situation at a stake. Another example of price abnormality is that the chili pepper was selling at 80-100 taka a kg last week and I myself saw someone buying the same one kg at 80; but how weird it is that the seller is asking the same chili pepper at 200 taka a kg! How comes it to happen this way! The price of chili pepper zapped from 80 to 200 by only three or four days. This instability in the prices of the day to day essentials can never be indulged in a civilized society, which every moment, is entailing untold miseries upon the commoners of the country.

Now that a concrete demand from the mass people has granulated that, with no time, the concerned authorities of the government must take full control over the market of essential commodities, and help the countrymen to heap a sigh of relief so that they can keep body and soul together by their limited income.