Durga Puja organisers planning to put pulao or payesh on the community feast menu might want to check out the price of one key ingredient.
Gobindobhog, Bengal’s strain of short-grain, aromatic rice, is now twice as costly as it was six months ago.
From around ₹95-100 in March, the retail price of a kilo of the GI-tagged and widely exported Gobindobhog has jumped to ₹195-200. Some of the costlier brands are selling at ₹220-240 a kilo.
Traders and exporters cite two reasons for the unusual price hike.
One, low production last year because of cyclone Dana and rain during the November harvest season, which damaged about 25 per cent of the crop.
Two, an unusual rise in the demand for Gobindobhog abroad, particularly the Gulf.
“Last year’s low production and the high demand from importing countries, mainly in the Gulf, have caused the price surge. Once the new crop comes in (later this year), we expect the prices to fall automatically,” Rahul Khaitan, a Calcutta-based rice exporter, said.
Gobindobhog is widely exported to countries like Kuwait, the UAE and Canada.
Sources underlined that while Bengal was once the sole Gobindobhog exporter, states like Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand have in recent years been cultivating and exporting certain varieties of the crop.
“We have heard that since last year, the Gulf countries have been refusing consignments of Gobindobhog from Uttar Pradesh because of quality concerns,” All India Kisan Sabha state secretary Amal Haldar said.
“Which is why the demand for Bengal’s Gobindobhog has increased this time, resulting in the abnormal price hike.”
Another exporter said the recent decision by Bangladesh to allow duty-free rice import from India might have contributed to the price rise.
“While the government (in Dhaka) allowed the (duty-free) import of the usual rice varieties, there was no bar on importing this aromatic variety, either,” the exporter said.
An agriculture department official said that after the exports to Bangladesh resumed, the prices of different rice varieties rose by ₹5 to ₹20 per kg.
“But the sharp rise in Gobindobhog prices is utterly unusual,” he acknowledged.
A Calcutta-based exporter and leading figure in the Gobindobhog trade, however, dismissed the “international demand” theory.
“Many may claim that the demand for Gobindobhog has increased globally, but as an exporter, I believe that low production alone is responsible for the price hike,” he said, asking not to be quoted.
Mrityunjay Ghosh, professor of agronomy at the Bidhan Chandra Krishi Vishwavidyalaya (BCKV) and a researcher on Gobindobhog’s variety characterisation and geographical indication (GI), told The Telegraph that such a steep price rise in so short a time was unusual and should concern everyone.
“The BCKV and the Bengal government have been working together to increase Gobindobhog production across the south Bengal districts,” Ghosh said.
“After Gobindabhog received the GI tag (in 2017), we have been trying to increase its cultivation area beyond the regular 30,000 hectares.”
Asked about the price rise, state agriculture minister Sovandeb Chattopadhyay said: “It’s a subject for the agricultural marketing department.”
Agricultural marketing minister Becharam Manna could not be reached on the phone. Gobindobhog is produced in eight south Bengal districts, from the south Damodar region of East and West Burdwan to Hooghly, Nadia, Bankura, Birbhum, Howrah and North 24-Parganas.
A source said Gobindobhog is cultivated on about 30,000 hectares of land in Bengal, with the annual production usually a little over 1,00,000 tonnes.