After a lull of about a month, the prices of essentials are on their way to breaking past records in the meteoric rise across wholesale and retail markets in Bangladesh. People's relief at seriously depressed prices (compared to the past) in the immediate aftermath of the change in government was evident. Indeed, wholesalers and retailers went on camera to state that the supply chain for perishable consumables was no longer subject to illicit toll collection and hence it was possible to offer goods to consumers at substantially lower prices.
What has gone wrong now? According to a report published in this newspaper recently: "The Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection (DNCRP) has said that commission agents, known as aratdars, are manipulating vegetable prices, contributing to the overall price spiral in the market. The DNCRP has pointed out that wholesalers, dealers and retailers, in collusion with these agents, are driving up the prices of essential commodities, including vegetables."
Notably, the government now has a taskforce to monitor prices and ensure steady supply of commodities to the market. While on paper, the DNCRP is supposed to be working with the taskforce to "supervise markets across all division and districts of the country, including Dhaka metropolis", this is actually easier said than done. It leaves little to imagination precisely how an understaffed directorate is going to supervise markets all over the country, when it has difficulty managing the situation in the capital city.
The supply chain weakness has never been addressed by any government. That commodities change hands six or seven times is absolutely ridiculous and speaks volumes for why there are so many additional mark-ups in price. Then there is the question of illegal traders, also known as 'farias' who are operating in the city's principal wholesale market Karwanbazar, who have no legal basis to operate. It is, literally, a free-for-all situation. Now it has emerged from DNCRP market raids that wholesalers or 'aratdars' as they are known in local parlance, have formed their own mini-syndicate of traders at all levels of the supply chain to willfully dictate the price of vegetables.
Hence comes the age-old question, is no government or authority in a position to take on these mafia-like organisations? There is no dearth of evidence as to where their tentacles reach. People have been patient with the authorities, but how long will that patience last? Citizens want change. They have had to bear relentless food-related inflation for many years now and they now want their rights to be protected. The 'raids' performed by DNCRP are becoming somewhat of a joke because the fact is that they're not working to stem the tide of price increases.
A section of media has tried to spin the story to implicate that a new class of political hoodlums belonging to a certain political party has taken control of markets nationwide, but clearly syndicates remain at play. The fact remains that the authorities have more than ample evidence in their hands to take action against price manipulators, but haven't really done that. It is very convenient to play the blame game, but quite another to effect changes because the profit-sharing is just too good to pass up. One thing is clear as day light, and i.e., if today's authorities fall in to the same trap as the previous administration's agencies had, then it is going to be a very short honeymoon. People across the political divide are now exercising their right to expression, but all that will pale if people are once again forced to go hungry. Proper action is needed and needed immediately.
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