Al Amin :
The prices of rice are soaring abnormally in the city’s kitchen markets putting an extra burden on the purchasing capacity of consumers.
The spiking of the main food prices have dealt a major blow to consumers at a time when many have lost their jobs, while others have seen a fall in income owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Consumers said that prices of the main commodity were jumping indiscriminately but the government seems apparently reluctant to harness price hike as it failed to break the price manipulation syndicate.
According to Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB), rice prices have increased to the highest level in two to three years.
The prices of fine varieties of rice have increased by 6.36 percent, medium quality rice by 10.20 percent and coarse varieties 30.14 percent in a year, the TCB data said.
The retail price of fine quality Miniket rice has increased by Tk 400 to Tk 3,100 per sack of 50 kg. Prices of coarse varieties of rice also rose by Tk 1 or Tk 2 per kg on Sunday.
Sirajul Islam, a wholesaler at Jatrabari area, said that rice prices have increased to the highest level in two to three years.
When the government decided to procure rice at Tk 37 per kg and paddy at Tk 26 per kg in the current Aman season, the mill owners declined to sell at the price fixed by the government, citing they will suffer losses if they sell the grain at the prices.In this situation, the government has recently begun importing 100,000 tonnes of rice at Tk 34.35 per kg from India to keep the rice market stable.
Food Minister Shadhan Chandra Majumder said, “We have already initiated to import rice from India and the market will come down after arrival of the imported rice. The first consignment of the imported rice will arrive with 40 days and the rest will come gradually.”
Besides, we will intensify the open market sale (OMS) activities from December 20 to keep the rice price stable, the food minister said.
He further said monitoring cell to be formed so that the millers cannot be able to stockpile paddy more than 30 days in their warehouses.
Meanwhile, the government is set to miss its aman procurement target by a margin of about 75 per cent with the rice millers promising it only 1,39,960 tonnes of rice against the target of 6.5 lakh tonnes.
The deadline for the rice millers to enter into a mandatory contract with the government to fulfil the procurement target expired on Thursday with only a few of the total 19,230 millers complying with the law.
Besides rice, the government has also a target to procure two lakh tonnes of Aman paddy from farmers at Tk 26 a kilogram. So far the government has bought only about 85 tonnes of paddy.
