Bangladesh is urgently importing onions, essential ingredient in local dishes, by air as the price soared to record highs because of shortage. But huge amount of rotten onion found in different places, stored by wholesalers who tried to cash in on the high demand.
Onion was being sold at Tk 240 to Tk 250 in retail markets in Chattogram on Saturday. At Dhaka’s Nazirabazar, onion price had shot up to Tk 260 per kg .
On the otherhand, A mid this national outcry a huge amount of rotten onion was found to be dumped in Chaktai canal adjacent to Karnaphuli River on Sunday Morning.
Md Idris, onion trader of Khatunganj, said the onion was imported from Myanmar. “The crop was a little rotten when it entered Bangladesh and decomposed more after being stored in the warehouses,” he said.
He, however, could not name the traders who had dumped the onion.
During a visit to the area, sacks of rotten onion were seen dumped into the canal in Firingi Bazar Bridge Ghat area. Some local youths were seen sorting out better quality onion from there.
One of them said they are selling the half-rotten onion at Tk 40-50 per kg.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday told Parliament that there is enough stock of onion but they are not being released to the markets.
The government on Friday said onion is being flown to Bangladesh from Turkey, Egypt, Afghanistan and UAE on emergency basis to keep the local market stable.
Hasina’s deputy press secretary Hasan Jahid Tusher said onions were being imported by air freight, and that “prime minister (Sheikh Hasina) said she has stopped using onion in dishes”.
The state-run Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) is also selling onions at a discounted 45tk per kilo in the capital Dhaka.
At the city’s busy Farmgate neighbourhood, hundreds of people queued for hours, some getting into scuffles, to buy the one kilo of TCB onion.
>Juthy Saha
Bangladesh Imports Onions by Plane Over Shortage & Price Hike
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