Shop owners reject prices of 29 commodities
Shop owners on Tuesday rejected the prices of 29 commodities set by the government four days ago.
Bangladesh Dokan Malik Samity in a press conference at its office in the capital’s Moghbazar also demanded suspending the decision.
‘The prices of 29 items set by the Department of Agricultural Marketing are unjust, meaningless and imaginary. Suspend the government circular, otherwise we would have no way but to stop business,’ said Helal Uddin, president of the shop owners association.
He urged the government to sell the products in open market in special arrangement.
He suspected that there would be an acute crisis of goods in the market if the government price chart is implemented.
DAM’s senior agricultural marketing officer Md Jahidul Islam said that they set the prices based on authentic data from root level and following proper way.
He said that shop owners came up with the claims because their profit would be limited.
‘We have analysed the production cost, ensured profit for farmers as well as traders at a rational level,’ he said.
On Friday, the Department of Agricultural Marketing set wholesale and retail prices of the 29 commodities and urged the traders to comply with the prices.
Though the government set the prices but it hardly implemented in many market so far. Rather the businessmen were selling products in a higher rate for the lack of proper monitoring of the agencies.
Based on the production costs, government announced the rational prices of 29 agricultural commodities and other items including broiler chicken, egg, beef, mutton and fish.
DAM set broiler chicken at Tk 175.30 a kilogram, beef at Tk 664.39 a kilogram, mutton at Tk 1,003.56 a kilogram and sonalika variety of chicken at Tk 262 a kilogram.
Amid another spell of price hike of almost all the daily essentials in the kitchen markets across the country in Ramadan, the department has set the rational prices.
It has also set the wholesale prices of broiler chicken at Tk 162.69 a kilogram, beef at Tk 631.69 a kilogram, mutton at Tk 952.58 a kilogram and sonalika variety of chicken at Tk 256.10 a kilogram.
The Samity secretary general Jahirul Haque Bhuyan, other senior leaders and shop owners were present at the press conference.
