Commerce ministry failed to act in time, says food ministry on higher rice prices

The food ministry, under fire for costlier rice, has piled blame on the commerce ministry, accusing it of wasting time before deciding to cut back on import duty.

The commerce ministry should have reduced import duty on the staple grain “in time, and at once”, officials of the food ministry told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday.

Bangladesh did not reduce import duty in one go, but brought it down in phases and that too was not in time. To make things worse, India, a major rice exporter, raised prices several times.

“So even though import duty was withdrawn, the move failed to bring down the rice prices to a desired level,” according to a meeting document.

Facing heavy crop losses in flooding, the government revised import duty from 25 percent to 10 percent on Jun 20. A 3 percent regulatory duty required to import rice was also withdrawn then.

Then in August, the government slashed import duty further to 2 percent in an effort to curb prices in the local market.