The government sits with the country's leading importers, wholesalers and traders (today) Sunday to discuss ways of keeping the prices of essentials under control during the upcoming holy month of Ramadan.
The high-level meeting convened by the ministry of commerce will discuss the demand and supply situation of the essential commodities and the mechanism of effective market monitoring by the agencies concerned in the holy month.
"We are sitting with the top market players to convey the message to the traders that the government will not remain idle if they try to manipulate prices through hoarding," a senior commerce ministry official said.
He said an inter-ministerial meeting of the government on Thursday last decided to go tough against unscrupulous traders and foil any effort to manipulate prices of essentials during the month of Ramadan.
After the meeting on the day, Golam Mostakim, additional secretary of the ministry, said it was decided that the law enforcers would watch the market and monitor the prices of essentials, particularly the demand orders (DO) and vouchers of edible oil to check unusual rise in its prices.
A senior official said today's meeting will be presided over by the commerce advisor of the caretaker government Hossain Zillur Rahman.
"We'll request the businessmen if they have any suggestion on the law enforcer's market monitoring mechanism," he said.
The official said it's a matter of grave concern for the government that the prices of essentials have already started going up despite the holy month is still more than a month away.
He said prices of some food items like chickpea, puffed rice, pulses, onion, bashon (powdered pulses) and spices, items, which are in high demand during Ramadan, have started going up in the city markets over the last few days.
The official said: "We have received reports from a number of agencies that a section of traders have started hoarding of the aforesaid items with a view to making hefty profits in Ramadan."
"Prices of these items usually go up about a month before Ramadan, but this year their prices have started rising a bit earlier."
Against this backdrop, the official said: "We are now considering to engage law enforcers to look into the market at the earliest despite the decision made earlier in an interministerial meeting that they will be deployed two weeks before the Ramadan begins."
Zillur sits with traders today to review price situation
Naim-Ul-Karim | Published: July 27, 2008 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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