The New Nation - Internet Edition

A BUMPER BORO harvest was expected to drive down the price of rice. People of modest means pinned their hopes on this with the ample arrival of the new rice in the market. But shattering these expectations the price of rice is showing no sign of a stabilisation following the record harvest. There was noted no significant fall in prices as the Boro rice started coming to the market. Now, credible media reports say, the price of rice has registered a rise by Taka 80 on average per maund in the current week.

This fresh upward trend in rice price after the harvest of Boro crop is as beguiling as it is deeply frustrating for the consumers who were hoping that with a decline in the price of rice the prices of other essentials and services would also come down. The trend in the price of rice comes as a rude shock. Needless to say, government should lose no time in finding out at the soonest this aberration in rice price. It must act to help arrest this price upswing.

Some private rice traders are trying to sell the story of large scale foodgrain procurement by the government in the wake of the Boro harvest as driving prices of rice upwards. But observers also see the stocking activities by the ones in the rice business who are offering tempting prices to farmers to sell their produce to them. They are, of course, engaged in such purchases with the aim of stocking rice to sell the same later for more profits. The government may strengthen market monitoring activities immediately to guard against hoarding of foodgrains. Once it is noticed, appropriate actions must be taken-as swiftly as possible-to counter such mischief.