Rice miller Mohammad Khaleq had no other option but to close down his mill three weeks ago. He had invested Tk20 lakh, taking loan from banks to make more profit in this full Aman paddy season.
“I am almost bankrupted,” said Khaleque who is counting losses amid rising bank interest against his loans. He fails to pay the wages to his labours.
Like every sector, the rice sub-sector takes heat of the nationwide non-stop blockade, which enters into 31 days today, enforced by the BNP-led 20-party alliance to press home its demand for a fresh national poll under a neutral caretaker government.
The story of Khaleq is not at all different from thousands of others rice millers, as 80% of them have already suspended their operation.
There are more than 17,000 rice mills across the country and most of them are located in the northern region of the country, according Bangladesh Auto, Major and Husking Mill Owners Association.
Abdul Quddus, another miller, usually collects paddy from Naogaon and Dinajpur districts to feed his mill located at Modina area in Joypurhat town.
But, he too failed to run his rice mill due to acute shortage of transportation. “The situation is so grave, which have never seen before,” said Quddus, who is in this business for nearly a decade.
The agreement he signed with a rice trader of Badamtoli in Dhaka to supply the staple food has now been suspended due to his failure in delivering rices on time. It means that the supply chain of foods has broken down, pushing the rice prices up in the capital and lower in the rural areas. Consequently, it helps fuel the food inflation that stood at 6.07% in January from December’s 5.86%.
“More than 80% mills were already closed down because of the transportation crisis,” said KM Layek Ali, secretary general of Bangladesh Auto, Major and Husking Mill Owners Association.
“Of them, 20% has already become bankrupted. If the prevailing turmoil political situation continues any further, everything will be vanished,” he feared. Investment worth around Tk4,000 crore has remained stuck up in this sector just because of the political unrest, he added.
Closure of rice mills has also hit the wholesalers’ buffer stock in the city and other areas of the country.
“Rice stock is also depleting fast,” said wholesaler Nizam Uddin at Badamtoli in Dhaka, who fails to bring rice from the northern region. During the peak season of Aman, his rice stock usually remains at 10,000 tonnes. “Now it comes down to half,” said Nizam, who is also a leader of Babubazar Rice Wholesalers Association.
He said some rice-laden trucks entered into the city at the dead of night from nearby Sherpur area, but it is not good enough for us. “We are just breathing. It can be stopped any time,” he said.
Nirod Baran Saha, president of Naogaon Chal Aratdar Malik Samity (an association of rice wholesalers in the district), pointed out that around 3,000 tonnes of rice are usually sent to different districts of the country per day from Naogaon. The volume has recently been reduced to below 500 tonnes.
The truck fare has increased by more than 300% in the recent days, as the truckers feel insecurity to rent out their vehicles, fearing vandalism and arson attacks in the wake of blockade.
The supply chain disruption has thrown knock-on-effect at the consumer level as rice price has started to go up in the city, adding an extra burden to the fixed and lower income people.
In the last one month, coarse rice rose 1.5% to Tk37 a kilogram and the price of fine varieties increased more than 1% to Tk57 per kilogram, according to the state-run Trading Corporation of Bangladesh.
Economists sounded a note of caution on rising prices of staple food, as the trend might influence food inflation to go up further in the coming days.
Former finance adviser to the caretaker government Mirza Azizul Islam observed that an uneven rice price trend in different areas is a sign of stocking inflation.
“We need to do our best to save the country because those days are not far away when disaster will come,” said Islam.
Rice miller turning importer
In fact, the plight of the rice millers has begun before the blockade programme as the government had earlier decided to import rice from India last year.
“Many rice millers have started to import rice from India shutting down their own rice mills,” said Layke Ali, a leader of rice millers association.
As blockade has added extra pain to them. “They are importing the Indian rice, Swarna, almost every day because of its competitive price over other verities, giving traders a bulk amount of profit,’’ he added.
Urging the government to cancel the decision for importing rice from India immediately for the sake of protecting the country’s industry and ensuring fair price for the farmers, he said:“It virtually hurts the farmers as they fail to get their fair prices due to the fall in demand.”
Bangladesh has produced around 34.449m tonnes of rice in the last fiscal year against the total demand of around 28m, up about 2.7% from around 33.833m tonnes produced in FY 2012-13, according to the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE).
Boro, Aus and Aman contribute to around 7%, 38% and 55% respectively to the total rice production in Bangladesh. The country is now world’s sixth largest producer of rice which accounts for 77% of agricultural land use.
