Price of the lowest quality coarse rice on the city’s retail market has marked a total of 11.86% increase over a year, and is selling now at Tk34 per kilogram.
Although the recent boro harvest has lowered prices on the wholesale market, no impact is still visible on the retail prices.
The Trading Corporation of Bangladesh data also shows that the fine rice is 4.88% more expensive that one year ago and is being retailed at Tk50 a kg now.
A fortnightly report till June 18 of Food Policy and Monitoring Unit (FPMU) finds a good boro harvest this season has helped the prices coming down on the wholesale market, but the retailers are yet to receive the message.
The report says the city’s wholesale price of rice has decreased by 2.3% to sell at Tk25.9 a kg while the retailers have increased price by 1.6% to sell at Tk31.50 a kg.
According to the government officials however, the boro harvest will start casting a positive impact soon on the retail market of rice.
“We are yet to find any reason why coarse rice price is still high of coarse rice in in retail market event after boro harvest,” Ahmed Hossain Khan, director general of the food directorate, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
He said: “If the price does not come down to a reasonable level, we will resume OMS in the beginning of Ramadan.”
Besides, there is a plan to procure 800,000 metric tons of wheat from the international market to build up a good food stock, the DG added. A senior official in the ministry hopes the price of rice will not go up further as boro season has seen a good harvest and the government also continues to procure rice to enrich stock.
The lower-income people want OMS of rice in Ramadan. “Price of coarse rice is still high in the market. We seek resumption of OMS before Ramadan,” said Abdul Kairm, a fourth class employee at the Secretariat.
The government closed OMS of rice and flour across the country after boro harvest.
According to official records till June 24, the government has a stock of around 964,000 metric tons of rice and wheat. One year ago, the stock was 1.31m metric tons. The official sources said 800,000 metric tons of food grains will be imported by the year-end.
This season, the government’s boro procurement totalled 256,000 metric tons till June 24, starting from May 2.
“If the government could control rice price, inflation would reduce to the targeted rate,” said Dr Mustafa K Mujeri, director general of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies.
The government estimates inflation in next fiscal would be 7%, which may prove difficult in the election year, he said.
The inflation rate on point-to-point basis plummeted to 7.98% in May, which, according to the National Statistical Organisation (NSO), was mainly due to fall in prices of the main commodities including rice.