Like sugar and wheat flour, Dhaka's groceries now have a scarcity of cooking oil as well.
About 60% of groceries in the city were seeing shortages of these three key essentials, a visit to several groceries in some residential areas revealed.
Head of Directorate of National Consumers Right Protection (DNCRP) AH Shafiquzzaman recently said there is no scarcity of products in the country, but hoarding by a section of companies and traders is making the situation critical.
Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB) Vice-President SM Nazer Hossain said the government agencies have conducted above 56,000 drives against unscrupulous traders in the last one decade, but the condition has hardly changed.
Capital punishment should be ensured for market manipulators to bring normalcy in the market, he also said.
The Bangladesh Trade and Tariff Commission (BTTC) and the DNCRP have to play a vital role - considering import cost of goods, import volume, availability of different companies, and prices at mill-gate, wholesale and retail levels.
Import duty on products like edible oil and sugar should be removed for a certain period to make these items available to consumers, he added.
Bangladesh has an annual demand for 2.2 million tonnes of sugar, 2.4 million tonnes of edible oil, and 7 million tonnes of wheat.
The country meets 90-95% of the demand for these three essentials through import.