Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder on Monday said some dishonest traders have hiked prices of imported goods in the country to take advantage of the Covid-19 situation and the war in Ukraine.

The minister said this while attending a program for distributing household silos to 4,000 families in Raninagar upazila in Naogaon.

“Global economy has become stagnant due to Covid-19 pandemic. In the meantime, food and other commodity prices in the global market have become unstable amid the ongoing war which the local traders are taking advantage of,” Majumder said.

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He said already all the district Deputy Commissioners and Upazila Nirbahi Officers were directed to take action against those traders.

“A total of 200 paddy silos with a capacity of 5,000 MT (metric tonnes) each will be built across the country to ensure fair price and comfort to the farmers. Already 30 of them have been approved by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec)," he also said.

Establishing the silos will make supplying paddy for the marginal level farmers easy as even damp paddy would get demoisturised in them, said the food minister.

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“These silos can keep water, paddy, rice, and any other food dry and fresh for two years. A family can store 40 kg paddy, 56 kg rice, and 70 liters of water in them,” he added.

The minister said these silos will work as a boon for the people living in disaster-prone, coastal areas.