Soybean oil crisis: Govt cracks down on hoarders
An annoyed Shovon Das was walking home with a five-liter bottle of soybean oil from Shaheb Bazar in Rajshahi city yesterday afternoon. He had paid Tk 985 for it even though the government set the price at Tk 760. Shovon was lucky that he ran into a team of the Directorate of National Consumers Right Protection (DNCRP) which took him back to the retailer and forced the shopkeeper to pay him back the additional sum he took from Shovon. The team also fined the shop owner Tk 5,000. Since Monday, police and DNCRP members have been raiding markets to stop retailers from overcharging consumers of soybean oil. Some traders illegally stockpiled the edible oil creating an artificial crisis and many of them were caught when they started selling off the oil at higher prices, officials concerned said. Hasan Al Maruf, an assistant director of the DNCRP in Rajshahi, said the unscrupulous traders were now selling soybean oil they bought earlier at lower rates. Secretary of Bangladesh Vegetable Oil Re