Ghagra Bazar is a bustling market in the hill district of Rangamati. Located at the junction of the Ghagra-Kaptai road, it is known mainly as a place where produce grown by the indigenous communities of the hills is bought and sold.

The market sits on the main Rangamati-Chattogram road and falls under Kawkhali upazila of Rangamati district. Because of its location, the lively atmosphere of its weekly hat and the trade in hill fruit and farm produce, Ghagra Bazar has long been known as the commercial heart of the area.

On Wednesdays and Saturdays, sellers come from the surrounding hills with fruit, jum-cultivated crops and a range of other goods. Trading starts very early in the morning, and most of the buying and selling is over by 11am.

The market offers thankuni (Indian pennywort) leaves, bamboo shoots, taro stolons, potatoes, hill sweet potatoes, jum-grown okra, elephant foot yam and many little-known hill greens and vegetables. Dried fish, locally made spices and handwoven hill cloth and other products are also traded.

There is an abundance of pineapples, papayas, oranges, mangoes, jackfruit, bananas and other seasonal hill fruit. The variety of hill produce at Ghagra Bazar is enough to impress any visitor.

Reported by Fattah Tanvir Rana.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.