Rising food prices squeeze Dhaka households

Consumers across the capital are reeling under a relentless surge in the price of daily essentials, with fish, poultry and eggs climbing to levels that are forcing ordinary and low-income households to curtail their protein intake amid an unforgiving cost-of-living squeeze.

A tour of various markets in the capital on Friday laid bare the punishing reality confronting shoppers: scarcely any fish could be procured for under Tk 250 a kilogram. Pangas fetched between Tk 230 and Tk 250, while tilapia commanded Tk 250 to Tk 260. The middle class's perennial favourites, rui and katla, proved even more prohibitive, retailing at Tk 380 to Tk 420, with medium-sized rui selling for Tk 300 to Tk 350 per kilogram -- and a single kilogram of hilsa soaring to as much as Tk 2,500. Beef, meanwhile, was changing hands at Tk 780 to Tk 800 per kilogram. Saeed Mia, a customer at Rayerbazar, lamented that virtually nothing in the market remained within easy reach, questioning how people of limited means could possibly sustain their households when even a kilogram of ordinary tilapia was unattainable for under Tk 250.

Compounding the strain, poultry and egg prices offered consumers no respite whatsoever. Broiler chicken was selling at Tk 190 per kilogram, sonali chicken at Tk 320, and desi chicken at a steep Tk 650. Eggs proved similarly costly, with a dozen red eggs reaching Tk 150 in wholesale markets and climbing to Tk 155–160 at neighbourhood shops. Sellers maintained that fish and poultry prices had not risen dramatically compared with the previous week, though they conceded that rates remained stubbornly elevated.

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Consumers, however, painted a starker picture, noting that their incomes had failed to keep pace with the escalating cost of indispensable food items, leaving them to spend considerably more for markedly less. They voiced mounting apprehension that, absent vigorous market monitoring and swift price-control measures, the burden weighing on middle-class and low-income families would only intensify in the days ahead.