— File photo.
The government on Friday announced the logical prices of 29 agricultural commodities including broiler chicken, egg, beef, mutton and fish amid the unusual price hike of almost all the daily essentials on the kitchen markets across Bangladesh.
Based on the production cost, the Department of Agricultural Marketing has set the logical wholesale and retail prices of the 29 commodities und urged the traders to comply with the prices although the same initiative of setting prices of the essential commodities by the commerce ministry had been ignored by the traders for couple of years.
The Department of Agricultural Marketing under the agriculture ministry in an announcement said that the prices of the commodities had been set as per section 4 (i) under the Agricultural Marketing Act 2018.
The section of the act says that, for carrying out the purpose of this act, the function of the Department of Agricultural Marketing shall be the determination and implementation of the lowest and reasonable price of agricultural produce.
As per the act, DAM has set the logical retail prices for 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.
Meanwhile, the prices of the commodities continued to rise in the city markets for past few weeks and broiler chicken sold for Tk 220-230 a kilogram, beef for Tk 750-800 a kilogram, mutton for Tk 1,100-1,200 a kilogram and sonalika for Tk 330-350 a kilogram on Friday.
DAM also set the retail prices of katal fish at Tk 353.59 a kilogram and pangas at Tk 180.87 a kilogram local onion at Tk 65.40 a kilogram, garlic at Tk 120.81 a kilogram, green chillies at Tk 60 a kilogram, aubergine at Tk 49.75 a kilogram and potato at Tk 28.55 a kilogram.
The department set the retail prices of gram at Tk 98.30 a kilogram, black gram at Tk 165.41 a kilogram and egg at Tk 10.50 a piece.
Earlier the commerce ministry in September 2023 had set the prices of three locally produced food items – egg, potato, and onion – for the first time against the backdrop of soaring prices of the commodities but the prices were not implemented for a single day.
In consultation with the importers, the commerce ministry usually set the prices of imported commodities including edible oil and sugar over the years but the government often failed to implement the prices even after conducting mobile court in the market.
Amid the high prices of essential commodities, a new spell of price hike took place in the market before starting Ramadan, the fasting month for the Muslims, making all the government efforts ineffective.
