Almost 9,000 tonnes of rice is trapped in Sherpur as traders are not being able to supply the produce to areas outside the district due to ongoing countrywide BNP-Jamaat blockade. The amount of surplus rice in the market is increasing with every passing day.
To recover day-to-day expenses, traders have not option but sell the rice within Sherpur, incurring up to Tk2 per kilogram of rice. The numbers add up to a net loss of at least Tk 1 crore 80 lakh for 9,000,000 kilograms of surplus rice in the district alone. Rice trade in Sherpur affects livelihoods of at least 100,000 people connected to it: mill-owners, whoesalers, employees, producers, transport workers among others.
Risking the ongoing blockades, truckers had been carrying the rice for extra premium. After 4 lorries fell prey to pickets in the Dhaka-Sherpur highway, even the increased transport cost is failing to motivate the truckers who now decline to travel to the capital.
Normally, lorries charge Tk 13,000 for a Dhaka bound trip. Now the price has risen to Tk16,000-18,000. However, the number of lorries making the trip had fallen to 10-15 per day from a normal average of 100 trucks per day.
As a result, the regular price of Najirshail and BRI-28 has fallen two taka per kilogram from Tk 42 and Tk 34 respectively.
Rice mill owners and wholesalers inform at least 1,000 rice mills, large to small, supply up to 100 lorries of Najirshail, BRI-28 parboiled and un-boiled rice to the rest of Bangladesh.
Notable Sherpur-resident rice trader, and the vice-chair of the local chamber of commerce, Haider Ali confirmed our reporter of the amount of rice piling up in the district.
Secretary general of the mill-owners association and senior vice president of the COC, Asaduzzaman Roushan says the situation for the stakeholders’ looks woeful; people who have acquired credit from the banks are in direr straits with many staring at bankruptcy.
