The government has decided to import 10,00,000 tonnes of boiled rice privately to control the rising rice market with local prices jumping to a record high on limited supplies.
It was decided at the recent virtual meeting that initially necessary steps would have to be taken to import 1 million tonnes of rice at the private level at 25 percent import duty, an official of the food ministry said on Monday.
Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder chaired the meeting.
Agriculture Minister Dr Abdur Razzak, Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi, Food Ministry secretary Dr Mosammat Nazmanara Khanum and Agriculture Ministry Senior secretary Md Mesbahul Islam also spoke on the occasion.
At the meeting, the Food Minister said the demand for thin rice has increased as the use of coarse rice has decreased.
If non-basmati siddha or ‘Atap’ fine rice is imported privately, then the market price will be somewhat controlled, he added.
The Agriculture Minister said this time the price of paddy has been fixed at Tk 1,080 per maund.
The farmer got a fair price because the production cost per farmer did not exceed Tk 700 to Tk 750 (per maund), he said adding that, therefore, if rice is imported, the farmer will not be harmed in any way.
The price of rice has gone up even after the Boro rice harvest, so it will be necessary to import rice privately along with government imports as in the previous series, he mentioned.
At the meeting, Tipu Munshi suggested reducing the import duty to control the rice market and importing a certain amount of rice privately.
According to the policy, one million tonnes of food grains have to be stored, said Nazmanara Khanum.
In this case, about 5 lakh tons will be collected through internal collection and about 5 lakh tons will be collected through foreign collection, which is not enough to control the market, she mentioned.
Providing fair prices of paddy to the farmers, as well as market control, requires import at private level, she said.
Md Mesbahul Islam said, “According to the Department of Agricultural Extension and the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, the price of rice is still high even after Boro paddy has reached 2.08 crore tonnes.”