Though stubbornly rising prices have long been the hallmark of the country's essentials market, of late, it looks like things are changing for the better. There is about a dramatic decline in the prices of red meat, egg, chicken and fish. In the past months, price of beef, for instance, went so high that even comparatively better off segment of society started to skimp on it, let alone the low-income group. As reported in the last Wednesday's issue of this paper, though the price of beef earlier skyrocketed to its all-time high at Tk 850 per kilogramme (kg), it registered a dramatic fall by Tk 200 per kg or by nearly 24 per cent just over the past few weeks. Obviously, such a big fall in the prices of this otherwise costly meat has come as a relief to some consumers. Meanwhile, the sources of cheaper protein including egg, broiler chicken and fish have also been demonstrating a similar trend of declining prices, the report further goes.
Notably, in recent months these same items, especially egg, defied every government effort to hold their surging prices in check. Many blamed such a behaviour of the market on the so-called manipulative syndicates. In a bid to control particularly egg price, which in September shot up to Tk13 to Tk14 apiece, the highest in a decade, at the retail level, the government had to go for importing the item. Whether it was the threat of import or for reasons yet to be uncovered, the price of this item has gone down remarkably by 21 per cent over the last one month. To the further relief of the public, broiler chicken and farm-grown fishes too were found to be selling at a drastically reduced price over the recent weeks.
Since it is a clear departure from the long-prevailing market trend of soaring prices, question arises if this seemingly cheering turn of events is going to sustain in the long run. Leaving it to serious researchers to dig deeper into the matter, to the average person, it is attributable to the public's ever-eroding real income due to runaway inflation that compelled them to remove the costly meat from their menu of daily diets. Some point to the month-long blockades or shutdowns as part of the opposition-enforced political programmes that lie behind the sudden fall in some essentials prices.
Whatever the case, the lines are getting longer by the day at the mobile OMS-shops and at the TCB's selling spots. To note, Open Market Sale (OMS) is a programme of the food ministry to supply rice and flour at subsidised prices to low-income people, while the TCB (Trading Corporation of Bangladesh), a wing of the commerce ministry, sells potatoes, onions, soybean oil and lentils at a fair price. Longer queues and wait for hours together for the supplies from the TCB or OMS trucks pose the question, if even the cheaper meats carry any meaning to such people. According to the TCB, prices of fine rice, coarse lentils, potatoes and onions have seen a persistent rise over the past one year, while sugar price has made a big jump. Evidently, it has offset the gains from reduced meat prices. In fact, with their purchasing power plummeting, occasional fall in some of the essentials prices may not bring great relief in the lives of the public. In truth, what the common people need most is an ensured income that can effectively counteract the punishing impact of runaway inflation on their lives.
Effect of some essentials' price fall on public life
FE Team | Published: December 01, 2023 18:42:30
Effect of some essentials' price fall on public life
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