Price hike
The exorbitant price hike of daily essentials, particularly coarse and other varieties of rice, edible oil, flour, lentils, and potatoes has put the common and fixed income groups in a very difficult situation. The prices of these commodities are very high and are showing an upward trend every day, it is now beyond the purchasing capacity of many common people. They have been facing acute hardship and, therefore, are trying to manage with less intake of food or avoiding some of these commodities in daily meals and even many daily wage earners have reduced their daily meals from three to two. On January 2, on my way to office, I saw a long queue of thousands of people of various classes waiting to purchase rice in a BRD sponsored shop designated for selling daily essential commodities. It clearly indicates that the market prices of rice and other consumable commodities have gone very high. Over the last couple of years, it has been the practice to blame the international market for price increase of these commodities and during the last BNP led government unscrupulous syndicate leaders behind the scene were mostly responsible for spiralling of prices. This practice is still in place and it is also a fact that prices of some commodities have gone up in the international market and, consequently, this will have some adverse impact on the local market. The present government took some very bold steps in many fields to bring discipline, justice, fairness and transparency. All those drives taken by the government were welcomed and applauded by the common people with high hopes. But if the government fails to control the prices, then all those attempts and achievements will be questioned. Even the good initiative of the government to curb corruption would be fruitless as many government and other services holders will not be in a position to meet the basic needs with their legitimate earnings. In many fields the government has been able to draw the support of the common people and it has been making its best endeavours to address all these issues that would put the country on a strong footing by maintaining law and order, good governance, transparency in business deals and ensuring fair justice in all respects. But failure to maintain a reasonable price of essentials would neutralise all these good initiatives. The government should immediately activate the TCB or encourage private importers and make all-out efforts to create a salutary environment where from the small traders to large business establishments would come forward to tackle the situation in a pragmatic manner, taking into consideration the gravity of the market situation.
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