TCB outlet also stops sales abruptly
Sugar and soya bean oil ‘ran out’ in most retail shops in the capital on Thursday, a day after the commerce ministry revised the soya bean oil price and set the prices for palm oil and sugar.
The commodities could be found in a few shops in the city, but the shopkeepers were charging prices that are much higher than what the government had set on Wednesday, buyers said
The ministry set soya bean oil price at Tk 109 a litre, palm oil at Tk 99 a litre and sugar at Tk 65 a kilogram. The prices came into force on Wednesday.
Regular sales of sugar, soya bean oil and red lentil at the outlet of the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh headquarters at Karwan Bazar, however, abruptly stopped on Thursday for an indefinite time, which buyers said had given the retailers the chance to charge higher from consumers.
Consumers found a notice on the outlet that has been closed. The notice read: Sales will remain temporarily closed as supply exhausted.’ Consumers said that it was an unsigned notice.
TCB officials said that they had stopped selling as they ran out of commodities their warehouse.
They did not give any specific time for sales resumption and said they would need some time to store commodities in the warehouse.
Consumers termed the supply shortage of the commodities in city shops as a trick to make windfall profit.
They said that the traders had done this as they knew that they would not be punished for this.
The consumers who went to Karwan Bazar kitchen market on the day said that they could not find sugar and non-packed soya bean oil at the shops in the market. Retailers said that their stocks were sold out.
‘I needed to buy a kilogram of sugar and a kilogram of non-packed soya bean oil but I found none on the market as the traders stopped selling the commodities,’ Md Idris Ali, went there shopping, told New Age.
Non-packed soya bean oil is sold in the capital by kilogram and not by litre.
He said that the traders were doing so as to create an artificial supply shortage to maximise profits as they know that the government would do nothing against them.
Sellers at Al-Amin Traders and Mayer Doa Store at Karwan Bazar said that they could sell sugar and soya bean oil as their stocks were sold out.
A number of the traders at the market said that some traders having stocks stopped selling the commodities as they had bought the commodities for prices higher than what the government had set and they would need to charge higher.
Consumers going shopping at Farmgate, Shewrapara, Mohammadpur, Moulavi-para, New Market and Jigatala and some other localities said that a few shops were selling sugar for prices between Tk 75 and Tk 76 a kilogram and non-packed soya bean oil between Tk 120 and Tk 130 a kilogram.
Packed soya bean oil of different brands was selling for prices between Tk 120 and Tk 122 a litre at Karwan Bazar.
Md Russell, who had to buy sugar for Tk 75 a kilogram and non-packed soya bean oil for Tk 120 a kilogram at a shop in his locality at Manipuripara, told New Age that the shopkeepers were not selling the commodities at prices set by the government.
-With New Age input
