The capital is still in holiday mood after Eid. There are few people on the streets and most shops are closed. Jatrabari wholesale market, one of the main hubs supplying daily essentials to Dhaka, is also largely lifeless. There are few buyers, and supplies of fish, vegetables, other essentials and fruit have not returned to normal.

A visit to different parts of the market on Tuesday morning (10 June) found most shops still closed and far fewer buyers than usual.

Wholesalers said vegetable supply was low because of the Eid holiday, though it rose on Tuesday compared with the previous two days. Traders said the supply of mangoes, jackfruit and other fruit also rose on Tuesday after two days of closure.

Vegetable wholesaler Najimuddin told Jago News that vegetables were not coming from distant areas. "What is the point of them coming? There is no one to buy. From next Saturday all kinds of vegetables will come, and people will be at the market too," he said.

Sellers were offering sweet pumpkin, bottle gourd, snake gourd, okra, bitter gourd, green chillies, coriander leaves and other vegetables, selling both wholesale and retail.

Fruit wholesalers said supply had fallen sharply over the past few days because of the Eid closure, but some fruit lorries arrived on Tuesday. They expect supply to rise gradually and return to normal in the coming days.

Fish wholesalers said supply had been low since before Eid because of the 58-day ban on sea fishing from 15 April to 11 June, and the Eid holiday has made it worse. They expect supply to return to normal within the next two or three days.

Md Shahabuddin, owner of Mehendiganj Fisheries at Jatrabari, said: "Fish supply has dropped completely. Fishing at sea is banned, and there is no fish to be had in the rivers either. So no fish is coming. And now there is the Eid closure."

He said only 250 to 300 of the market's roughly 3,000 stalls were selling fish, with all the rest closed. Supply will increase once the ban on sea fishing is lifted, he said.

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