Prices of almost all kinds of daily consumer goods have risen over the past few days. From fish, meat and chicken to rice, lentils and oil, markets are on the rise. There is no relief in the vegetable market either: while the arrival of early seasonal vegetables should have brought prices down, ordinary people are bewildered by higher prices.

On Friday, at the Shukrabad kitchen market and the Kalabagan and Kathalbagan markets in the capital, sellers were asking more than usual for everything, from fish and meat to vegetables and leafy greens. Being a holiday, these markets were busier than on other days.

In these retail markets, although onion and egg prices had eased slightly, prices of all kinds of vegetables and greens were high, including potatoes, tomatoes, aubergines, bitter gourd, pointed gourd, bottle gourd, green papaya, cucumber, carrots, cauliflower, yardlong beans, snake gourd, sweet pumpkin, ridge gourd, taro stolons, okra, bottle gourd leaves, spinach, red amaranth, water spinach and taro leaves.

Aubergines, which used to sell for Tk 50-55 a kg, now sell for Tk 60-65. Onions have fallen from Tk 70 to Tk 60. Green chillies, which sold for Tk 120-130 a kg, cost Tk 140 today. Garlic is Tk 130-140 a kg, up from Tk 125. Round potatoes cost Tk 25 a kg, up from Tk 20.

In today's market, ginger sells for Tk 130-140, bitter gourd Tk 60-70, pointed gourd Tk 50, bottle gourd Tk 50-60, green papaya Tk 20 a kg, carrots Tk 100, okra Tk 60, taro stolons Tk 70 and sweet pumpkin Tk 50-60 a kg. Just a week ago these vegetables cost Tk 5-10 less. Red amaranth, spinach and radish leaves sell for Tk 15-20 a bunch and bottle gourd leaves for Tk 30-40.

Hafiz Uddin, a vegetable seller at Kalabagan market, said: "We have to pay extra to buy vegetables wholesale, and that has affected the retail market. Prices will fall when more winter vegetables arrive. Until then, the market will stay high for a few days."

Buyers are angry at the rising vegetable prices. A shopper named Mariam Jahan said she was having to pay Tk 140 for a kilo of chillies. "There is no vegetable under Tk 50-60. How will we ordinary people survive? The price of everything in the market has gone up, but income has not," she said.

Beef and mutton prices were unchanged, but broiler chicken has reached Tk 180. Beef sells for Tk 600 a kg, mutton for Tk 900-1,000, layer chicken for Tk 250 and Sonali chicken for Tk 260 a kg. Eggs, which sold for Tk 38-40 a hali (four), have come down to Tk 36.

There is no relief in the fish market either. Per kg, rui sells for Tk 350-380, catla Tk 340-350, pangas Tk 180-200, pabda Tk 550-600, small tilapia Tk 140-150, large tilapia Tk 190-200, silver carp Tk 170-190, grass carp Tk 150-170, golda prawns Tk 700-750 and shing fish Tk 450-500. Small kachki sells for Tk 350 and mola fish for Tk 300 a kg.

At grocery shops, soybean oil sells for Tk 140-150. Coarse lentils cost Tk 95-100 and fine lentils Tk 100-110. The rice market is unchanged: Nazirshail sells for Tk 65-70, Miniket Tk 60-65 and Atash Tk 55 a kg.

Source: Dainik Sokaler Somoy. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.