Breaking market syndicates

The report that members of the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement, in short, Movement, in Khulna will sell essential commodities from non-profit sales centres raises our spirits. That is for the simple reason that it is the same students who took to the streets in August 2018 demanding road safety. Again, the nation saw them controlling road traffic last August after the police fled their duty stations en masse after the fall of the past regime. The students are like a guardian angel beside the people whenever they (people) are in a crisis. So, it is hardly surprising that they are now trying to protect hapless consumers from the onslaught of skyrocketing essentials prices. What they will be able to achieve with their modest effort is not the point at issue here. The fact that the students are concerned about the public's suffering caused by high price of essential commodities is what matters.

The Khulna students have reportedly planned to run sales outlets at different corners of the city and its surrounding areas where essentials including vegetables will be available at cheaper rates than in the kitchen markets. The students behind this move believe that through these fair price shops the syndicates responsible for keeping the essentials market artificially volatile can be broken. Experts on markets and their dynamics may question the sustainability of the not-for-profit sales centres. Of course, cooperation of the government bodies like the Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection (DNCRP) to strictly monitor the essentials markets across the country will be essential in this regard. In fact, the DNCCRP has been with the Movement from the outset of the latter's launching the market monitoring drive since early August following the political changeover.

The Movement leaders also planned to form teams in collaboration with the DNCRP and consumers in the kitchen markets of the capital city as well as at the upazila levels for monitoring markets and fighting syndicates. Members of the public including traders were supportive of the Movement's effort. Meanwhile, about three months have passed. The essentials market has remained as volatile as ever. Even so, the Movement's latest move to open non-profit sales centres for essential commodities in Khulna is a testament to their indomitable spirit that has not diminished even in the face of overwhelming odds. And what the Movement is capable of has been amply demonstrated on August 5. However, with the passage of time, the tempo of any movement gradually dies down. So, to avoid ending up in that manner, it is important that the Movement keeps its revolutionary spirit alive by increasing contact with the common people through its engagement in their day-to-day struggles. From that point of view, the opening of non-profit shops to sell essential commodities is definitely a step in the right direction. Also, at a recent conference organised by a consumer rights body, the labour adviser, Asif Mahmud Shojib, who is a former leader of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, suggested that the youths may collect essential commodities directly from their producers, that is, farmers and sell those to the consumers. This is undoubtedly a novel idea of marketing the agricultural products without the intervention of middlemen. It is common knowledge that starting from the farmers in the countryside, the agricultural goods change hands (of middlemen) multiple times before those finally reach the kitchen markets in the cities. In the process, the prices of the agricultural commodities go up multiple times. If the idea as suggested by the labour and employment adviser could be put into practice, it would also create entrepreneurs out of thousands of unemployed youths of the country.

That apart, it can also be looked upon as part of an experiment to understand the non-market forces that constantly drive up the essentials prices. So far, the conventional approaches to resolve the stubborn issue failed to produce results. Then why not try the new ideas being put forward by the students to break the so-called essentials market syndicates?

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