Razzaque blames dealers, millers for hiking rice price

Agriculture Minister Abdur Razzaque today blamed syndication of dealers and millers for price hike of rice in the market during the full season of aman harvesting in the country.

The minister came up with allegation while talking to reporters at a press conference at his secretariat office in Dhaka this afternoon.

The government in principle took a decision to import five to six lakh tonns of rice to meet the current shortage of rice in the local market, he said.

Claiming that the stock of rice in government’s warehouses came down, he said, “There was around 13 lakh tonns of food in the government’s warehouses in the last year while this year, it has come down to six lakh tonnes.”

“Millers and dealers play active roles in increasing price of rice in the market and they did the same this time. They are engaged in buying paddy and increasing prices of both rice and paddy,” Razzaque alleged.

Harvesting of aman paddy is going on in a full swing in the country but the prices of both paddy and rice are still higher compeered to the last year, the minister observed.

According to the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh, the prices of Nazirshail and Miniket increased around 9.82 percent in the last one month while the prices of coarse rice went up to 12.94 and the price of medium quality rice went up to 19.35 percent at the same time.

Amid the situation, the government has cut up 25 percent import duty from existing 62.5 percent to boost rice import from neighboring countries including India to meet the local demands, the minister said.

The government has taken all out steps to keep the market under control, Razzaque said adding that the millers are engaged in hatching evil efforts to increase the price of rice in the country.

The importation of rice has already been started under the government management and the government has already reached a dead with India, he said.

At the same time, efforts are on to import rice from Thailand. Indonesia and Vietnam, he said adding that his government is all prepared to meet the growing demands for rice.

“We will import rice to meet our local scarcity so that no one suffers from food shortage. I want to make sure that no one goes hungry,” Razzaque said.