The prices of rice remained high in the city’s kitchen markets although the government had set the mill-gate price of the staple to contain the unusual price hike of the commodity.
Rice mill owners claimed that they were selling rice at the government-set price but wholesalers were not decreasing the price.
Wholesalers, however, said that the government had lowered the mill-gate rate about Tk 20-30 a bag (50-kg) compared to the previous price and it could hardly have any impact on the wholesale and retail prices of rice.
The food ministry in a meeting with the rice mill owners on Tuesday set the price of miniket rice at Tk 51.50 a kg, while the price for medium-quality rice was set at Tk 45 a kg.
‘For the sake of the national interest we agreed with the government and all the rice mill owners’ were selling the staple food at the fixed prices,’ KM Layek Ali, secretary general of Bangladesh Auto Major and Husking Mill Owners Association, told New Age on Thursday.
He said that in most cases rice mill owners were incurring loss to comply with the government-set prices due to the high price of paddy but wholesalers did not decrease the price of the item.
M Layek Ali urged the government to take an initiative so that the benefit of decreased prices of rice percolated down to the level of the consumers.
Kawsar Alam Khan, a wholesaler at Babubazar in the city, said that the prices of rice set by the government did not impact the market much as the mill-gate rate of rice remained almost the same.
He said that the government had set the prices at Tk 2,575 for a 50-kg sack of miniket and Tk 2,250 for medium quality BR-28 rice, but the previous rate was only Tk 20-30 higher than the current ones.
‘I think there was no possibility to decrease the price of rice in the market with the government initiative as the newly set mill-gate rate of rice was almost the same with the previous prices.’
Md Maksud, a retailer at Mohammarpur Krishi Bazar, said that the rice prices remained high in the market as the wholesale prices remained unchanged.
Although the government set the mill gate rate of rice the retail prices would not come down until decreasing the wholesale prices, he said.
According to the traders the standard variety of BR-28 rice sold for Tk 50-52 a kg while the fine variety sold for Tk 54-55 a kg in the capital on Thursday.
The standard variety of miniket rice sold for Tk 56-58 a kg and the fine variety sold for Tk 60-65 a kg.
The fine variety of najirshail rice retailed at Tk 60-65 a kg and the coarse variety sold for Tk 44-48 a kg on the day.
