The government and businesses imported 1.11 lakh tonnes of rice from India over the last one month since the food ministry started giving permission to private traders to bring the grain in order to curb the spiralling of prices locally. 

Of the amount, businesses brought 56,390 tonnes of rice while the Directorate of Food imported 55,130 tonnes of the staple, said the food ministry in a statement yesterday.

The food ministry's disclosure came after it granted permission to 320 firms to import 10.14 lakh tonnes since January 3 apart from buying through the food office to replenish public food stocks.

Food stock in the state godowns slumped 59 per cent year-on-year to 6.75 lakh tonnes on February 1, down from 16.28 lakh tonnes the previous year as the food office failed to lure growers and millers to supply the grain at its announced prices in the upward market.

Until February 1, the Directorate of Food could buy 7,390 tonnes of paddy which is 4 per cent of its target to buy 2 lakh tonnes of the unhusked rice during the immediate Aman harvesting season.

Of the 6 lakh tonnes of milled rice purchase target, it could attain 9 per cent or 56,280 tonnes since it began procuring the foodgrain from November 7 as most of the millers refused to provide supplies at the government fixed rate of Tk 36 per kilogramme on grounds that they had to buy the paddy at higher prices.

Rice prices dropped marginally over the last three weeks. Yet, prices of coarse grains remained 35 per cent higher from Tk 32-35 per kilogramme in the same period a year ago, data by the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh showed.

The food ministry said it started selling rice through four mobile trucks at subsidised rates in Dhaka city since February 1.