Ministry mandates for millers to display selling prices, varieties on rice bags
Highlights:
- The directive will be effective from 14 April
- Corporate bodies can optionally print maximum retail price for extra transparency
- Information must be printed, not handwritten, to ensure legibility and prevent tampering
- District officials and food controllers responsible for enforcing regulations
- Violators face legal action under relevant food product act
The Ministry of Food has made it mandatory for rice millers to display selling prices and varieties directly on rice bags, in an effort to increase transparency and reduce price hikes.
This directive, effective from 14 April, comes after concerns about inconsistent pricing and misleading labelling practices in the market.
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The new regulation, outlined in a notification issued yesterday, requires rice millers to clearly print the producing mill name, district and upazila name, date of production, mill gate price and variety of paddy/rice on each bag.
This initiative stems from recent observations by the ministry in rice-producing districts. They discovered instances where rice from the same paddy variety was sold under different names and prices, creating confusion and potential exploitation of consumers.
"Millers, wholesalers, and retailers often blame each other when rice prices become unreasonable," the ministry said in the notification. "This leaves consumers struggling to find desired varieties at fair prices and can lead to financial hardship."
The ministry said that the information must be printed, not handwritten, to ensure legibility and prevent tampering. Additionally, corporate bodies can choose to print the maximum retail price alongside the mill gate price for further transparency.
District administrators, upazila executive officers, and food controllers will be responsible for enforcing these regulations during inspections. Violators risk facing legal action under the "Production, Storage, Transfer, Transportation, Supply, Distribution and Marketing of Food Products (Prevention of Prejudicial Activity) Act, 2023".
