Traders increased the retail prices of all varieties of rice in the capital this week citing the excuse of supply shortage because of recent rainfall.
They claimed that the ceaseless rainfall and cloudy weather that had persisted for more than a week decreased the supply of rice.
Although the local sources of rice supply admitted that bad weather hindered rice processing in the last 10 days, they expressed their surprise that prices of rice at retail markets were proportionately higher than expected.
The traders at Naogaon Mokam, a major centre for rice trade, said that such abnormal trend had been continuing for two years as retailers were pocketing Tk 5 to Tk 10 from selling a kg of rice. Once, the profit margin was limited within Tk 2 per kg.
On Wednesday, the coarse variety of hybrid rice was sold for Tk 34 per kg, increased by Tk 2 per kg, the quality variety of BR-28 was sold for Tk 38 per kg, increased by Tk 4 and the miniket variety was sold for Tk 48 per kg, increased by Tk 4 per kg over the last week at Karwan Bazar and at other retail markets in the city.
The price of Nazirshail variety increased by Tk 2 per kg and stood between Tk 52 and Tk 54 per kg while that of Katarivog variety increased by Tk 4 per kg and stood at Tk 60 to Tk 62 per kg.
Belal, a retailer at Karwan Bazar, claimed that bad weather affected the rice price as they had to procure rice from the Mokam every week.
The prices of almost all varieties of rice that are extensively consumed increased by around Tk 40 per maund (37.3 Kilogram) over the week before the last.
On Tuesday, the price of coarse variety of hybrid, BR-28 and miniket variety increased by Tk 1 per kg over the week and stood at Tk 32, Tk 36 and Tk 42 respectively at the wholesale market in Babu Bazar.
The price of Nazirshail variety increased by Tk 4 per kg and stood at Tk 48 while that of Katarivog variety increased by Tk 2 per kg and stood at Tk 59 to Tk 60 per kg.
However, Kawsar Alam Khan, a wholesaler at Babu Bazar, said that price of miniket increased much in local market but the wholesale price increased by only Tk 1 as they had miniket that had been stocked before the rainfall.
On Wednesday, at Naogaon Mokam, miniket that are processed in husking mills was wholesaled at Tk 38 to Tk 38.60 per kg, increasing by around Tk 0.5 per kg over the last 10 days, while miniket of auto rice mills was sold for Tk 42.89 to Tk 43.4 per kg, increasing by around Tk 0.8 per kg over the period.
BR-28 rice variety was sold for Tk 31.8 to Tk 32.70 per kg, increasing Tk 0.5 per kg while BR-29 rice variety was sold for Tk 29.50 to Tk 30 per kg, increasing by Tk 0.5 per kg over the period.
Naogaon Dhan-O-Chaal Arotdar-O-Baboshaye Samity General Secretary Nirod Baran Saha said that production of rice had been hampered by rains and cloudy weather as the non-auto rice millers could not produce rice during the period because they were fully dependent on sunshine for drying the unhusked rice.
-With New Age input
