Vegetable prices continued to increase in the capital city’s kitchen markets due to a shortage of supply caused by heavy rains in the recent times.
Brinjal was sold at Tk60-80 per kg, bitter gourd Tk70 per kg, ladies’ fingers Tk70 per kg, green bean Tk70 per kg, cucumber Tk60 per kg, tomato Tk85 per kg, papaya Tk40 per kg, and potato Tk25 per kg in Dhaka’s kitchen markets yesterday.
“It is not surprising that vegetable prices go up during the rainy season but today it seems to have gone beyond my affordability,” Jasim Uddin, who works at a private firm, told the Dhaka Tribune at Karwan Bazar.
He blamed the government’s lax monitoring system that, according to him, had failed to keep prices under control and within the reach of the masses.
The prices of onion and chilli remained beyond the reach of the low-income people.
Local onion was sold at Tk75-80 per kg while imported onion was priced at Tk65-70 per kg.
Wholesalers hoped that onion prices would fall when the new locally-grown onion would be supplied to the market.
“As the demand for onion cannot be met by only the locally-grown variety, we have to import from India. Exporters in India have hiked prices, which in turn has hit the market in Bangladesh,” Jahangir Hossain, a wholesaler at Karwan Bazar, said.
Since August 23, the price of per kg onion soared up to Tk90 following the Indian government’s hike in export price.
The Indian government increased the minimum export price of onions to $700 a tonne from $450 to ensure that domestic supply was available after production was hampered by heavy rains. Green chilli was the priciest, sold at Tk190-210 per kg.
Imported garlic was sold at Tk110-120 per kg, and the local variety Tk80 per kg.
Meanwhile, traders blamed the rain, which damaged huge crops and inflicted heavy financial losses on vegetable growers, for the shortage in supply of vegetables.
They remarked that prices were unlikely to fall until the harvest of winter vegetables.
“The supply of vegetables drastically decreased in the last couple of weeks because of downpours in different parts of the country,” Md Emran Master, president of Bangladesh Kanchamal Aarot Malik Samity, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
“There has been a crisis in the supply of a variety of vegetables as torrential rain inundated vast areas of croplands.”