FE Report
People thronged the kitchen markets in the city Saturday to buy essentials for fasting preparation as the holy month of Ramadan begins today (Sunday) across the country.
The National Moon Sighting Committee took the decision in a meeting on Friday after reviewing reports on moon sighting.
Muslims are meant to fast from dawn to dusk during the lunar month, a time of restraint and austerity.
Ramadan, also known as Ramzan, is the ninth month in the Islamic calendar. It is a time when Muslims around the world focus on prayers, fasting, giving to charity and religious devotion. The Tarabih prayer was also started Saturday night.
President M Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Saturday greeted the countrymen and all Muslims across the world with the advent of the holy month of Ramadan. In separate messages, they prayed for the welfare of the country and the Muslim Ummah.
Grocers, vegetable vendors, meat and fish traders passed very busy time serving their customers at the major kitchen markets.
"We are seeing significant crowd during last three days," said Mashiur Rahman, a grocer at Mirpur Section 2 kitchen market.
He said most of the consumers were buying chickpea, khesari (grass pea), sugar, suji, onion, ginger, garlic, beshan (pulses powder), muri, chira (puffed rice), molasses etc.
The demand for some selected essentials surged from Thursday night as job holders were buying products in additional quantity, fearing price hike in the days ahead, he added. "The crowd will be less from the beginning of Ramadan."
Vegetable, Beef, chicken and fish traders also saw a big rush.
However, the consumers expressed concern over the price hike of most of the essentials ahead of the Ramadan.
Md Iqbal Hossain (Pritom), a NGO official, said prices of chickpea, grass pea, brinjal, beshan (pulses powder) increased significantly while meat and fish prices sky rocketed, hitting hard the limited income group of people like him.
"The big traders have changed tactics. They raised the prices much before the Ramadan to prove themselves innocent during the fasting month," he said.
According to Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) and Department of Agricultural Marketing (DAM), the price of chickpea rose by 11 per cent (pc), grass pea by 5 per cent, imported garlic by 12.5 per cent, sugar by 3 per cent, palm by 6 per cent, muri by 10 per cent, some brinjal varieties by 25-45 per cent and date by 8 per cent in a week.
Prices of rice, beef, mutton and soybean oil were being sold 10-42 per cent, 14 per cent, 22 per cent and 11-14 per cent higher respectively compared to that of the last year, TCB said.
Meanwhile, the Bangladesh Shop Owners Association and Dhaka City Corporation Shop Owners Association jointly launched a campaign to prevent 'panic buying' on Saturday at Karwan Bazar, said a press release.
The associations also started a programme styled 'buying essentials for Ramadan at Tk 100'.
Under the offer, a person could buy 500 grams (gms) of brinjal at Tk 30, 500 gms of cucumber at Tk 10, one kg of onion at Tk 20, 350 gms of carrot at Tk 10, 250 gms of green chilli at Tk 8 and 100 gms of coriander leaf at Tk 10, one haali (four pieces) lemon at Tk 12.
Meanwhile, home minister Asaduzzaman Khan visited Karwan Bazar kitcken market Saturday when the traders assured him that they would not hike prices of essentials during the Ramadan, BSS reports.
He also urged all the consumers not to buy additional goods as the supply chain of all kitchen commodities would remain normal during the fasting month.
The minister said the law enforcement agencies will remain alert across the country during the holy month to avert any sort of untoward incident.
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