A market monitoring committee in Kushtia has alleged that price manipulation by millers is one of the main reasons behind the recent price hike of rice in the country.

The committee worked on the sudden price hike of rice across the country and discovered price manipulation by the mill owners.

The nine-member committee headed by Kushtia Additional Deputy Commissioner Nitish Chandra Sarkar carried out an investigation on Saturday and Sunday in the district's Khajanagar, one of the biggest rice trading hubs with 500 rice mills.

The committee submitted a report to Kushtia Deputy Commissioner Abdul Mannan who forwarded it to the food ministry yesterday.

The team found that the millers arbitrarily hiked up the rice price on the

pretext of increased price of paddy.

The millers have huge rice stocks at different places countrywide, mostly in the northern region. But they always conceal it, the report said.

But, rice traders in Dhaka and elsewhere set the staple's prices at much higher rates, the report added.

The mill owners sell per maund of Miniket rice atTk 1,550.

Nitish Chandra Sarkar said the rate is illogical as the millers bought paddy at Tk 600 to Tk 700 a maund and the production cost did not increase much anywhere.

The millers fix the rate comparing with the current price of paddy in the market that is Tk 970 to Tk 980. "Such a price fixation is not acceptable,” Sarkar told The Daily Star.

“The price should be set keeping the actual procurement cost in mind.”

The price of Aman paddy is now around Tk 760 that was nearly Tk 350

during the harvesting season, he added.

The committee recommended bringing the entire rice production process under continuous monitoring, maintaining day-to-day register of paddy purchase and rice production, and sending the list to local district administration.

The members of the committee also demanded a permanent marketmonitoring officer in the district.

However, the Kushtia millers denied the allegation, saying the price of paddy shot up by around Tk 200 to Tk 250 a maund in the recent months.

“We don't hoard. We buy paddy and produce rice daily," said Abdul Mazid Bablu, president of Khajanagar Rice Mill Owners' Association.

District Controller of Food Jahangir Alam, a member of the monitoring committee, ruled out Bablu's claim and said: “If they buy paddy daily, why can' t they show the documents?”