Boon for sellers, bane of buyers

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INDONESIA: An Indonesian scavenger and her two children taking a rest in Jakarta Thursday. Indonesia cut its benchmark interest rate to a new record low of 5.75 per cent Thursday, as it tries to remain on track with economic growth amid a global slowdown.

Monira Munni
Sales of road-side foods, especially thirst quenchers, have gone up in recent days due to the scorching heat. But consumption of the same has been only adding to the number of victims of water-borne diseases including diarrhoea, in the city.
Experts say, the taking of the road-side foods, though results in a good business for the vendors, causes many health hazards to the people because these foods are extremely unhygienic.
City dwellers are taking the road-side drinks and fruit juice especially sugarcane juice, green coconut, watermelon and papaya to quench their thirst which is almost intolerable these days.
The city dwellers are so much fed up with the current situation caused by nature coupled with electricity, gas and water crises that they do not bother whether the foods are hygienic or not.
"I know that the road-side drinks are not hygienic as they use different harmful chemicals in the drinks," Shameem, a government employee, told the FE while taking a glass of sugarcane juice.
Like Shameem, many are seen taking unhygienic watermelon, papaya, pineapple and cucumber sold in the open air.
Mazid Mia, a sugarcane juice seller in the Motijheel area, said, "My average sale of sugarcane juice increased during the last few days because of scorching heat."
Earlier, he used to sell sugarcane juice worth Tk 2,500 which hardly exceeded the range of Tk 3,000; but over the last few days he was selling juice worth Tk 4,000 to Tk 5,000. "It is almost double the previous sale," he said with a smiling face.
To remain cool, during these scorching days, many are fond of having a glass of icy cool, sweet and fizzy 'sharbat'. Sugarcane juice (aakher rosh) is a great favourite to them with a little squeeze of lemon and a pinch of salt, he said.
The green coconut sellers at different places of the city are also happy with their business as the sweltering heat brought to them good profit.
Abdur Rahim, a coconut seller at Eden Girls' College, said, "For the last one week I am selling more than 200 coconuts daily while the number was only 100-120 a week ago."
"On an average, I sell about 150-180 watermelons every day," Mohammad Billal, a road-side fruit seller, said.
However, experts said while enjoying road-side foods, people tend to overlook the unhygienic quality of the foods they consume. That is just one side of the problem, the immediate short-term effect.
In the long run, unhygienic foods have a number of side-effects - increased exposure to the risk of jaundice, ulcer, gastric and acidity, heart diseases, and many more, Rafiqul Islam, a medicine expert, said.