Gazipur handmade puffed rice makers struggling

A good number of people at Barotopa village in Sreepur of Gazipur are now passing busy time producing muri (puffed rice) in a conventional way to meet the increasing demand during the Ramadan.

There are at least 250 people involved in the manual production of puffed rice in the area.

"The handmade muri has a high demand in market despite its relatively higher price. I have been marketing the homemade muri for nine years for those customers seeking to buy chemical free and unadulterated muri," said Mohammad Salim, a puffed rice trader in the capital's Gopibagh area.

He told these to journalists while describing quality and features of such muri produced at the village.

Salim said he supplied the muri to the market after collecting it from the producers at the village, adding, "The muri is sold in some specified stores only and customers buy from there."

The handmade muri is in high demand, particularly in Cantonment area and Rajarbagh Police Lines where 1Kg of muri is sold at Tk 90.

Somej Uddin of Barotopa village, who has been producing muri for some 20 years, said they collected paddy from a local trader for producing the muri to which no chemicals were added except for salt.

"My wife, Parul Akter, is a muri maker too. Paddy trader, Mohor Ali of Barotopa Bazar, gives us 11 maunds of paddy a week, from which we can produce seven maunds of muri.  For this we are paid only Tk 4,000. On top of that we are often given Tk 3,000 for the same amount of production if the quality gets low," added Somej, who supports a family of five by producing muri.

Gias Uddin, who too is engaged in the job, said they picked dry leaves up twice during the dry season and then used them as kitchen fuel while producing the muri.

"The wage is too low," he added.

Abdus Sahid, another muri maker, said it took eight days from threshing and husking paddy to producing muri.

"Typically we get 11 maunds of paddy a week from the trader. We are given 22 more maunds during Ramadan, as there is a high demand at the time," Sahid added.

The producers, however, said instead of taking the paddy from traders, they could produce muri on their own if they could directly get the paddy from the government or a financial assistance to run the business.

Kamruzzaman, a customer in the market, said the price of the handmade muri is higher than that of the machine-made ones by at least Tk 40.

Crispy and tasty, the muri does not get spongy even when mixed with other food items, mentioned the customer.

Another buyer, Tajul Islam, said, "The rice of the machine-made muri is stored in the warehouse, but the paddy from which handmade muri is made is directly collected and husked. We witness the process every day," adding, "One can easily distinguish between qualities of the two types."

However, paddy trader Mohor said he collected "Mota paddy" (a particular variety of paddy known as Mota in Gazipur) from Patuakhali as it is highly expedient for producing muri.

In addition, IRRI-28 rice is also suitable, but it is not in abundance, mentioned Mohor.

"It costs a lot to bring the Mota paddy from Patuakhali because the traditional varieties of rice sold in the market cannot yield quality muri," said the trader, adding that each month he marketed 1,200 to 1,400 maunds of muri out of 2,100 maunds of paddy brought from Patuakhali.

The production cost for 1,200 maunds of muri stands at around Tk 84,000, while it brings him a profit of Tk 24,000 to

Tk 30,000, he mentioned.

"Six years back, I used to export the handmade muri to Dubai, Malaysia and Singapore. But it is quite difficult for us now to export the muri despite a high demand, as the items made with machines can easily flood the market," said Mohor.