The government is set to buy 150,000 tonnes of rice from India under a state-to-state contract in an effort to resupply the public food stocks following scant procurement from the current Aman harvest season, according to a senior official of the food ministry.
“We will soon sign a contract in this regard,” said Food Secretary Mosammat Nazmanara Khanum, adding that the agreed minutes were finalised on December 23.
The purchase follows a tender from the Directorate of Food for 250,000 tonnes of rice and 50,000 tonnes of wheat from international sources.
Citing the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India, Reuters said that the state agency is finalising the agreement, which will be the first bilateral deal of its kind in three years after repeated flooding in the country sent local prices to a record high.
This development comes as the government is moving fast to replenish the country’s depleting public food stocks and tame the soaring price of rice in local markets.
Food grain stocks at public warehouses slumped 46 per cent to 7.46 lakh tonnes as of December 23, down from 13.86 lakh tonnes on the same day a year ago, according to the food ministry. The retail price of coarse rice rose by 13 per cent to Tk 46-50 per kilogramme as of yesterday compared to its value from a month ago, data from the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh shows.
Until December 23, the Directorate of Food could procure just 306 tonnes of paddy and 13,567 tonnes of rice from local farmers and millers after beginning procurement from the current Aman paddy harvest.
The amount of paddy and rice purchased was no less than 1 per cent of the targets of 200,000 tonnes of paddy and 500,000 tonnes of rice for the season, data from the food ministry shows.
