The Covid pandemic has devastated the world economy. The prices of one product after another are rising in the international market to cope with that thrust. As a result, people have been bearing the brunt of price hike, especially the prices of imported products. The queue of low-income people behind TCB trucks is getting longer. In such a situation, the home-grown products could have given some respite but it is not possible due to the middlemen.
The people could not yield the benefits of the huge subsidy given by the government in the agricultural sector. On the one hand, we often notice the farmer cannot cover the production cost and throw the commodities away while the consumers have to buy the goods at high price from the market. Although this problem is chronic, it is having a major impact in the post-pandemic period.
To many people, the unbridled rise in prices of daily commodities seemed as a bigger crisis than the Covid-19 pandemic. We do not see any effective action of the government in this regard. The country now has the highest stock of rice and wheat, and has ample production. Even then the Ministry of Commerce failed to rein in the market. We can see that it is not possible to handle the situation by selling TCB products at low prices in a few places.
At the moment there is no alternative to controlling the market situation. Meanwhile, the consumers are bearing the brunt of price hike due to increase in the cost of transportation caused by the increase in fuel price. On the other hand, the mischiefs of the middlemen and peddlers and extortion by the police and transport sectors have exacerbated the situation.
In a report by the Department of Agricultural Marketing revealed that farmers in the country sell cabbage at an average price of Tk 13.5 per piece. It is sold at the retail market at Tk 38. This price is almost three times the price sold at the farmer level. Not only cabbage, but almost all vegetables including green chillies are sold at two to three times the price sold by farmer in Dhaka.
The price goes up due to the middlemen, transportation costs and police extortion. The report has been prepared by collecting information from farmers, middlemen, wholesalers and retailers of Karwan Bazar of Dhaka, Bogura, Jashore, Rajshahi and Meherpur districts from 1 to 3 January.
Many reports have been published in the media about the misdeeds of middlemen and police extortion in the kitchen market. This time a government agency reported about it that revealed how the middlemen and the police extort money in different places during the transportation and sale of goods. In most cases, the local political leaders and activists are the beneficiaries as the middlemen. Experts see police extortion as one of the reasons for the chaos in the transport sector. Police extortion from trucks on the streets is an open secret. There are allegations that officials at different levels of the police get their share of the money.
In a free market economy it is difficult to control the market directly. But it is unwarranted that the government will not be able to control the increase in the price of goods due to extortion and various obstacles. The report of the Department of Agricultural Marketing made seven recommendations for controlling the prices of agricultural products. These include increasing monitoring of the wholesale market, ensuring transparency in the activities of law enforcement and market committees, and reducing transportation costs. It remains to be seen whether these recommendations will remain on paper as usual, or effective action will be taken.