C T Online Desk: The Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection (DNCRP) has fined the owner of a Chattogram shop Tk 50,000 for hoarding cooking oil.
The government agency conducted a raid on the shop called ‘Jamal and Brothers’ located in the port city’s Colonel Hat market on Wednesday and found 4,000 litres of the staple, according to Md Foez Ullah, deputy director of the DNCRP in Chattogram.
“The store had bought soybean oil for Tk 135 a litre before the new price was fixed. But they were selling it at Tk 180 per litre,” he said.
The owner of the shop has been identified as Ayub Ali.
The DNCRP also found cooking oil, purchased in February, stockpiled in another shop named ‘Binimoy Store’. But the authorities are still combing the shop and as a result, no decision about a fine was reached.
Earlier on Monday, DNCRP imposed a fine of Tk 170,000 on Siraj Store in the city’s Paratali market, for hoarding 15, 000 litres of bottled cooking oil.
On Sunday, they recovered 1,050 litres of bottled soybean oil from another shop at Karnafuli Market.
The authorities raided a grocery store-keepers home on Saturday and found 2,328 litres of bottled soybean oil in Chattogram’s Fatikchhari Upazila.
Soybean oil had suddenly ‘vanished’ from shelves before Eid-ul-Fitr. Later, mill owners, with the consent of the commerce ministry, decided to raise the price of the product by Tk 40 to around Tk 200. But the move had little impact on the market.
