Waiting for potato: People line up while a woman sits on the road at Motijheel in the city on Wednesday morning as they wait at a designated point for a TCB truck to arrive there and sell potato at a fair price — FE photo by Shafiqul Alam The prices of potato remained much higher in the city markets on Wednesday than that of the government-fixed rate.
The government revised maximum retail prices of potato at Tk 35 a kilogram on Tuesday.
But stored potatoes like diamond and cardinal varieties were sold at Tk 43-50 a kg while 'carriage' variety at Tk 50-55 a kg in the city retail markets on the day.
State-run Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) started selling potato at subsidised rate of Tk 25 a kg through its open market sale (OMS) in the city.
Each truck is selling 300 kgs of potato apart from onion, pulses, edible oil and sugar.
Potato OMS has started at 80 points in Dhaka city, said spokesperson of TCB Humayun Kabir.
Each person is allowed to buy two kgs of potato from TCB trucks, he added.
A large number of buyers were seen waiting in front of TCB trucks on the day as they thronged there to buy potato, onion and other essentials at subsidised rates.
The stock of potato ran out before 12:30 pm on Wednesday due to its higher demand, claimed the consumers.
The government on October 14 fixed the prices of potato in three stages. Later, the government revised the prices on Tuesday amid its supply crunch in the city as traders were reluctant to sell potato at the previous rate.
Department of Agricultural Marketing (DAM) took the decision as the prices of potato shot up by 25 per cent to Tk 50-55 a kg.
The current price is 90-100 per cent higher than that of the price a year ago, according to DAM.
After holding a meeting with cold-storage owners, wholesalers and government agencies concerned, DAM on Wednesday re-fixed maximum cold-storage level, wholesale and retail prices at Tk 27, Tk 30 and Tk 35 a kg.
The cold storage rate was increased by Tk 4.0 while the retail and wholesale rate by Tk 5.0 a kg.
Many wholesalers started selling potato in the city from Wednesday morning after the government gave them assurance of relaxing monitoring within next one or two days, said Md Jahangir Alam, secretary of Shyambazar Potato Wholesalers Association.
They stopped selling potato for one and a half days to avoid legal hassle as it was not possible for them to sell those at the government-fixed rate, he added.
The prices of potato will decline if cold storage owners follow it, he said. "If the cold storage rate fixed by the government could have been implemented, we could supply potato at Tk 35 a kg immediately."
The wholesale price of potato was Tk 36-42 a kg in the city on the day, said Mr Alam.
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