Green chilli sells at Tk 2 a kg!

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Price of green chilli plummeted at the capital’s Karwan Bazar wholesale market yesterday afternoon. The wholesalers claimed it “the lowest price in a decade”.

Green chilli hit a low of Tk 2 a kg yesterday afternoon.

However, the low wholesale price did not have the expected impact on retail markets of the city. In retail, green chilli was selling between Tk 10 and Tk 20 per kg.

Retailers in the capital were charging prices for green chillies at will as most people were oblivious to the declining green chilli price. Visiting different retail markets, the Daily Star correspondent saw most people buying chillies in small quantities and did not bother to haggle.

Siraj Mia, a green chilli trader at Karwan Bazar, told The Daily Star that he along with four traders purchased 14,400 kg of green chilli at Tk 2 per kg from Manikganj Thursday night. Fearing the chillies would go bad, he sold them at Tk 2 per kg yesterday afternoon even though he had sold chilli at Tk 5 per kg Thursday night.

Siraj also said on average he was selling green chilli at Tk 3 per kg but he was incurring 50 percent loss as the price plummeted.

Like Siraj, about 50 other green chilli traders purchased chillies from different districts resulting in a huge supply surplus in kitchen markets of the city, market sources said.

Mohammad Montu, another green chilli wholesaler, said about 25 percent of the green chillies he had have already gone bad as they were wet and he would have to dump the rest if he failed to sell them within hours.

Wholesalers say that this year farmers have grown a huge quantity of chillies in the hope of fetching high prices like the year before. Last October, the price of green chilli hit Tk 200 a kg in retail.

Wholesalers, however, feared that there could be a short supply of chillies within a month as incessant rain during the last few days damaged the crop.

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