At the Mirpur-1 kitchen market in Dhaka on Monday, 5 October, the cheapest vegetable apart from papaya cost Tk 50 a kilo and the dearest Tk 200. By Bangla Tribune's count, 19 of the 32 vegetables on sale were priced at Tk 80 to Tk 100 a kilo or more.
Per kilo, tomatoes sold for Tk 120-130, local carrots for Tk 100 and Chinese carrots for Tk 120-130, long aubergines for Tk 100 and round ones for Tk 120-140, beans for Tk 200, bitter gourd for Tk 100, local pointed gourd for Tk 120, okra for Tk 80, yard-long beans for Tk 90 and green chillies for Tk 140. Coriander leaves fetched up to Tk 280 a kilo depending on quality. Papaya was Tk 30-40, sweet pumpkin Tk 50 and radish Tk 60; a bottle gourd cost Tk 70, a cauliflower Tk 80 and a cabbage Tk 70.
Potatoes, onions, ginger and garlic offered some relief, though potatoes and onions were up Tk 5-10 a kilo. Local onions sold for Tk 55 and cross-bred onions for Tk 50, red potatoes for Tk 25, white potatoes for Tk 30 and Bogura potatoes for Tk 40, local garlic for Tk 100, Chinese garlic for Tk 160 and Chinese ginger for Tk 140-150.
Broiler chicken cost Tk 180-188 a kilo, cock chicken Tk 290-300, layers Tk 350 and native chicken Tk 620-640. Beef was Tk 800 and goat meat Tk 1,250 a kilo. A dozen brown eggs cost Tk 140-145, white eggs Tk 135-140 and duck eggs Tk 180. Hilsa sold for Tk 1,500-2,800 a kilo depending on size, rui for Tk 400-600 and pabda for Tk 400-600. At the grocer's, bottled soybean oil was Tk 204 a litre, coarse lentils Tk 90, chickpeas Tk 105 and sugar Tk 110 a kilo.
Shopper Saiful Islam said everything from groceries to rickshaw fares was going up: "If prices keep rising like this, how will we manage?" Tarikul Islam, who carries other people's shopping at the market, said that although prices had risen he could not ask anyone for Tk 100 instead of Tk 50.
Vegetable seller Md Shah Alam expects prices to fall once new-season vegetables arrive in quantity, adding that unseasonal rain had pushed them up. Chicken seller Shiplu Ahmed Sohel said higher fuel and gas prices would feed into chicken prices. Egg seller Samiul Islam said wholesalers keep prices high while demand holds, and would cut them only if demand fell.
Photo: Hopeoflight / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) (the Mirpur-1 vegetable market)
Source: Bangla Tribune
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