The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

The Government is expecting that the first consignment of rice from India to reach Dhaka by next week as New Delhi agreed to supply the commodity at the rate of US 399 dollars per tonne, official sources said yesterday.

India had recently lifted a ban on export of rice up to 5.5 lakh tonnes to Bangladesh following the attack of Cyclone Sidr that ravaged the country's coastlines on November 15 last year.

"We are expecting the first consignment of rice to reach here by this month after the final approval of the decision by the two Governments," a senior official of the Food Ministry told journalists.

Senior officials of Bangladesh and India on Wednesday fixed the price of rice after four days of talks in Kolkata. Food and Disaster Management Secretary Mohammad Ayub Miah said Dhaka would take steps to import rice through rail, road and river ways after it received the necessary documents from the Indian authorities.

The meeting decided that representatives of both the countries would apprise their governments of the meeting's outcome for approval.

The meeting decided that four lakh tonnes of rice would be imported in the first two months, with two lakh tonnes each month. The remaining one lakh tonne will be imported in the third month, officials said.

The Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday reported that inflation rate of food items in urban areas reached 15.77 per cent and 13.91 per cent in rural areas on point-to-point basis in December last year shooting up further the prices of essentials, especially rice and flour.