Dry traditional sweets on sale at a makeshift shop on a rickshaw van at Doel Chattar of Dhaka University in the city on Saturday ahead of Pahela Baishakh — FE photo by KAZ Sumon Prices of Hilsa soared on Saturday morning before plummeting to its previous range by the evening on the eve of the 'Pahela Baishakh' celebrations slated for today across the country to welcome the Bangla New Year 1426.
Most of the fruits also saw an upswing in their prices amid the rising demand that marks celebration of the annual occasion.
Prices of hilsas-both medium and big-went up to range between Tk 1800 and Tk 2400 a kg in the morning on Saturday from Tk 1000-Tk 1850 in the previous morning.
The prices, however, started receding at noon to stand at Tk 1000-Tk 1800 a kg by the evening.
"I think the price might decline further in the morning on Pahela Baishakh," Razzaqe Ali, a vendor at the Jigatola Old Kitchen Market in the city, told the FE in the evening.
"I sold only six hilsas out of twenty during the whole day and I sold two of them at my purchasing prices," he said.
He also said the traders were desperate by the evening to sell their stored hilsas as they would lose the demand, once the occasion was over.
"The price of hilsa remain much higher at this particular time than that in the last one month. The people buy this silvery fish on the occasion of Pahela Baishakh. Fried hilsa is taken with panta bhat (soaked rice), a tradition among the farmers in rural Bangladesh. A section of Dhaka-based cultural activists introduced this tradition only for one day in the urban setting here by the turn of this century", associate professor of Bangla at Khulna University Md Imran Kamal said.
The trend was changing as the number of buyers for hilsas on the eve of the Bangla New Year had been declining over the last few years, he said.
He said the government imposed a ban on hilsa fishing from March to April to let baby hilsas grow.
"The people are more aware now and they are shunning this culture of consuming hilsas on this particular day," he said.
However, prices of most of the fruits including watermelon, sugar apple, wood apple, imported mango, orange, apple, grape, pomegranate and peach surged by 15-20 per cent on Saturday from the range on the previous day.
Watermelon was sold at Tk 120-Tk 350 each depending on the size. Wood apple was sold at Tk 50-Tk 250 each, orange at Tk 180-Tk 220 a kg, apple at Tk 180-Tk 250 a kg and mango at Tk 200-Tk 350 a kg on the day.
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