Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder on Thursday urged the people to stop eating polished rice and start eating nutrient-rich rice.

The minister made the comment while speaking as Chief Guest at a programme titled “The Commercial Journey of Fortified Rice in Bangladesh.”

“The government has decided to ensure nutrition in every food. Securing nutrition has been included in all the government’s policies, including 8th Five Year plan,” said Sadhan.

He said that the country has achieved food sufficiency thanks to the invention of new varieties of rice by researchers.

“There was a time when the country’s rice was nutritious. We’ve to think why this isn’t the case anymore. People are becoming malnourished through eating polished rice. Public awareness is a must to prevent the consumption of polished rice,” Sadhan added.

Read: Govt to procure 3 lakh mts Aman paddy at Tk 28 per kg: Food Minister

The minister further said that the government faces a shortage of 16-17 lakh tonnes of rice every year due to the polishing process.

“Without the initiative and investment by rice traders and rice mill owners, making nutritious rice available to the consumers will be impossible. I urge the traders and the rice mill owners to keep the prices of nutritious rice within the purchasing capacity of the common people,” Sadhan said.

Iron, Zinc, Vitamin A, Vitamin B1 and Folic Acid have been added to the nutritious rice. Five companies have taken the initiative to supply the rice to the markets of Dhaka, Chattogram, Khulna and Rajshahi.

Among the places where nutritious rice has been marketed experimentally are Dhaka’s Mohammadpur Krishi Market, Karwan Bazar, Shwapno and Agora super shops and Chaldal and Matrix Bazar online shops.

Read: ‘We lose 5MT nutrition-enriched rice when 100MT are polished’ says Food Minister

The programme was presided over by Secretary of the Food Ministry Md Ismail Hossain.

Md Atiur Rahman Atik, Member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Food Ministry, Md Shakhawat Hossain, Director General (DG) of the Food Directorate and Dom Scalpelli, Country Director of World Food Programme (WFP), among others, spoke as special guests.