<div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Acknowledging the suffering of general people due to rice price hike, Commerce Adviser Sk. Bashir Uddin has said that the government cut a 60 percent duty on rice import to keep the local market stable.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He said this while talking to reporters after a meeting with his Turkey counterpart Prof Dr Ömer Bolat at the Secretariat on Thursday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Asked about the preparedness ahead of the Ramadan to keep commodities at tolerable levels, he said, “We are prepared overall with the Ramadan and taking several initiatives on the rice market at this moment. We are relaxing the import while the duty on rice import was about 63 percent; we have reduced it to 3 percent.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Ministry of Food has been importing several lakh tonnes of rice from India, Pakistan and Myanmar, said the adviser.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Bashir Uddin assured that there would be no crisis of rice till April as a full season of Aman was going on now. There has been no inconsistency of any product so far.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Seeking cooperation from the reporters to take actions against syndicates who manipulate the rice market, he said that there was no crisis of the rice market now but the rice price hiked slightly due to the weather, flood and other issues.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Warning of strict action against the manipulators, he hoped that the rice market would be stable soon.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He said distribution of rice to 63 lakh families who hold TCB smart cards would begin this week and 50 lakh families would also get rice at lower price under the Food-friendly Programme.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Replying to a query, adviser Bashir Uddin said they scrapped 37 lakh smart cards due to corruption as one more member from the same family managed cards through forgery.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We want to add another 37 lakh cards. If it’s possible to increase it from one crore by bringing transparency in procurement and marketing, we will do that too,” he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">BN/KH</div>