Tab on Prices
The cost of living increased by at least eight per cent at the end of 1997 as compared with four per cent in 1996. The Consumer Association of Bangladesh (CAB) which released the figure placed its fingers on a vulnerable point saying that rice price is up by 1.93 per cent breaking the pattern of price decline of 4.72 per cent recorded during 1996. Tea price has gone up by 45 per cent, fuel by 28 per cent and house rent by 15 per cent plus, let alone powdered milk, meat and spices. Fertiliser price went up in addition to increases in the rates of utilities like electricity, water and gas.
The surmise that rice price might have gone up due to communication difficulties born of ferry congestions and hartals cannot hold water because cereal has been selling dear at the source itself, namely the northern districts of Bangladesh.
The upping of the cost of living index is worrisome by itself, to say nothing of the jacked up prices during Ramadan which are likely to stay where they are even after the month of fasting will have been over. So, we are in for quite an inflated price-line, to be sure.
The government will have to work out a price containment strategy along cooler lines. It will be no use blowing hot air via dramatic raids on the market-place. In the past these had the opposite effect of jolting supplies and pushing the prices even further up. We are for consumer resistance committees at the ward-level and official committees preferably at thana-level with some members drawn from the wholesale and retail business networks. The sets of committees communities must integrate and interact to bear any fruit.
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