Rice Crisis in Bangladesh

ANCHOR:
The queue in Bangladesh's government-run rice outlets is growing longer with every passing day as citizens of the impoverished country struggle to cope with soaring prices.

STORY:
The Bangladesh government has set up around 2,500 retail outlets across the country to sell rice and some other essential commodities to ease the economic burden of the country's poor.

People queue up from dawn to midday to buy 5 kilogrammes of rice per head from the outlets.

[Rina Begum, a 45-year old woman]:
"Since this morning, we have been in queue but still have not got any rice - I have been in line since 6 am and its now 11am and I still have not got any rice."

Many had to go home empty handed as supply ran out.
Rice and other commodities in these outlets are almost 30 percent cheaper than the market rate.

Officials and experts blame the rise on increasing prices in global markets and a series of floods and cyclones that struck the South Asian country last year.

[Lieutenant Colonel Asif Abdur Rouf, BDR Official]:
"Due to the price hike of rice all over the world, the price of rice in Bangladesh has also gone high, we are running about 50 retail outlets in Dhaka city and in other cities also so that we can sell rice to the poor people at government fixed rates."

The crisis is expected to remain until the harvesting season of Boro, the summer variety of rice, which is about a month away.

[Sona Miah, Rice-Mill Manager]:
"We produce rice from about 4 tones of paddy everyday in our mill.
With the current stock, we can continue the production for only five more days. After that we have to shut down the mill."

Bangladesh says it expects to harvest about 17.5 million tonnes of Boro by next month to ease the shortage.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• ntd
• bangladesh
• rice
• crisis
• poor

[rono2381]

@Rizkhanae how can India can help us while they are struggling to feed their own people.. its a age to compete just compete or die ..we think about our own interest..

[badsign1980]

this gonna explode or india and china stop this explosion in chindren overpop or else 3 world war will explode

[mourshed7053]

Indian govt. is like the imperialist govt. it always tries to take the chance of the weakness of other countries in south Asia. Though its true India helped at the liberation war of Bangladesh. Nowadays India always tries to pose imperialistic aggression in Bangladesh. India always tries to capture Bangladesh market. nd export low quality foods nd goods to Bangladesh at a low cost. This is much harmful for the health of Bangladesh ppl nd indigenous industry.

[Rizkhanae]

India should help Bangladesh in providing Rice to feed their people.

Bangladeshies should not have forgotten 1971 when India helped them in making their own country named Bangladesh.