Dhaka: Food adviser of the interim cabinet in emergency-ruled Bangladesh today said some 2.5 million people remained beyond food safety nets while a "hidden hunger" was on the rise because of soaring price and production shortfall.

"I will not call it a silent famine (as some analysts said) but a hidden hunger is on the rise," adviser Shawkat Ali told a press conference here.

He said despite expansion of government programmes to sale food at subsidized rate and Vulnerable Group Feeding (VGF), 25 lakh people of the country's estimated 144 million population remained completely out of "safety nets" of any kind while soaring food price exposed low and middle-income people to extreme miseries.

"This type of hidden hunger has been noticed in the past too, but its magnitude and scale have been exacerbated, you might say," the adviser said.

Ali's comments came days after a former minister warned of a "silent famine" in the country, where 40 per cent of the population live on a dollar a day and millions are still recovering from last year's disasters.

Ali said as part of the government efforts to intensify import drives and control price spiral, an agreement for importing four lakh tonnes of rice would be executed by in New Delhi by tomorrow with four rice exporting firms in India.

He said rice has also already started arriving from traders in West Bengal under an agreement for import of one lakh tonnes of rice.

Another agreement has been signed with a private firm for importing 50,000 tonnes of rice at the rate of USD 397 per tonne.

Source : PTI