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Blockade quiets wholesale hubs

Day labourers return home empty-handed

Sohel Parvez
It was midday yesterday and Mohammad Motaleb was engrossed in his game of ludo, when he should have been transporting rice in his cart.
The cart remained parked along with more than hundred such wooden vehicles and rickshaw-vans on one side of the road.
Rice wholesale stores sit on the other side. All were open but had no customers.
That was the scene at noon yesterday at Babubazar-Badamtali, a rice wholesale depot in the capital.
The area, which bustles with thousands of traders, rice-laden vehicles, pulling carts and honks on a normal working day, turned quiet as the three-day blockade kept traders at bay.
Till 1pm yesterday, cart-puller Motaleb could not earn a single penny as there was hardly any trade in the market.
"I returned home with empty pockets on Tuesday. If this happens today as well, it will be difficult for me to buy groceries for my family," Motaleb said.
His elderly colleague Akkel Ali said: "I
earned onlyTk 80 on Monday. Since then, I earned nothing." The demand for transport has fallen due to the blockade.
"I saw almost no retailer in the last one and a half days," said Mohammad Abul Kalam, manager of Mohasen Rice Agency. He could sell only three sacks of rice till 1.3 Opm yesterday.
Nazrul Islam, in charge of Haji Afsar Rice Agency, said panic has gripped people; retail traders do not dare to come to the market from faraway places.
"We are six people here. I don't know whether we'll get salaries this month."
Mohammad Giasuddin, manager of Janapriya Rice Agency, had the same story to tell. "We could sell only two sacks (of rice) since morning," he said.
Transaction at banks in the area also fell -- there were only four customers at the cash counters of Pubali Bank's Babubazar branch.
"There will be a rush after the blockade ends. We will have to work longer hours then," Md Moniruzzaman, manager of the branch, said.
Blockade quiets wholesale hubs
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From Babubazar, it takes 10 minutes by rickshaw to go to Moulvibazar, another wholesale market for cooking oil, sugar and other commodities.
Stores at Moulvibazar too were open amid a thin presence of customers.
Humayun Kabir, in-charge of Shafayet Hossain Traders, said he could not sell anything till early afternoon yesterday. On Tuesday, he could sell five cartons of vegetable oil.
"We are incurring losses for repeated shutdowns and blockades. How will we bear operational costs including salaries?" Kabir said, adding that the woes of the day labourers in the area were immense.
"Five people work in our store to load and unload goods. They together earned only Tk 250 yesterday. How can a man run his family with such a tiny amount?"
Some 10 yards away from the store, rickshaw-van puller Monir Hossain was waiting for a customer. His hunt started at 10am, but he got none.