Drive against price hike of essentials

---

Khalilur Rahman
A monitoring team of the Consumers' Rights Protection Department conducted drives in different city markets last week and warned the traders against selling of essentials at higher prices. The team members enquired about the prices of various commodities including rice, pulses, oil, sugar, ginger, onion, garlic, spices, etc. The drive was conducted in cooperation with Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) and Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) as per Consumers' Rights Protection Act of 2009. A report published in The FE on November 14 says that the monitoring team headed by a deputy secretary also realized fine of Taka 119000 for selling adulterated food items in three city markets.
In the backdrop of price spiral of most of the essential commodities, such drive is indeed welcome. Moreover the government has ordered the district administration across the country to conduct drives aiming to control price-hike of essentials. Despite government measures to curb price spiral, the consumers in general find with frustration that steps so far taken by the authority in this regard have failed to yield result.
In this connection we want to put forward a TCB (Trading Corporation of Bangladesh) survey report which says that the prices of rice and wheat have increased by 44% and 52% respectively during the last one year. The state trading corporation also reported that prices of edible oil recorded a rise by 35% in the same period. The report, as appeared in the press, noted that prices of all other essentials like pulses, egg, sugar and milk powder registered a sharp rise recently. At present the coarse variety of rice is selling at Taka 33 per kg while its price was Taka 28 a few months ago.
The present Awami League (AL)-led grand alliance government in its election manifesto vowed to keep the prices of essentials within the reach of the common people. We know that the government is quite aware of the people's plight and determined to check price hike of essentials. Why then are not the essentials' prices coming down at reasonable level? Scores of seminars and discussions have taken place on this subject in the recent past to find out ways how to address this burning problem. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced recently that the government wants to strengthen the TCB to break the evil nexus of 'syndications' and control the prices of essentials. The Prime Minister (PM) said that several steps have already been taken to reactivate the TCB which was kept inactive by the past BNP government. She asserted that the government must have a tool to intervene in the market and that the monopoly of private businesses can't be accepted. She also announced that the government has planned to raise production through running agro-based industries in public sector as well as proper utilization of arable lands. The PM said that the government would work for overall economic growth through strengthening both public and private sectors.
We strongly believe that the measures as announced by the PM can effectively control the price hike. In our view the expansion of ongoing Open Market Sale (OMS) programme by the government and introduction of a strict monitoring system are also essential to bring about stability in the market. In this connection, it may be mentioned that the government move to set up a price monitoring cell to control abnormal and artificial price-hike of commodities now faces bureaucratic tangle. The price monitoring cell was due to be formally launched nearly three months ago. We urge the authorities to set up the cell if the experts find it suitable for checking abnormal price rise of essential commodities.
E-mail : khalilbdh@gmail.com