Watch: Long queues, panic-buying in US after India's rice export ban

The ban on rice export by India has triggered panic-buying of the staple in the US. The move has also resulted in a surge in the price of rice in many stores. Several videos have emerged on the Internet showing long queues of Non-Resident Indians (NRI) outside departmental stores waiting to buy rice in bulk.

In one of the videos shared on Twitter, people are seen loading their shopping carts with bags of rice at a store in the US amid fears of shortage.

In another video, people are seen standing in a queue outside a retail store in the US. “After banning rice exports from India, Indians in the USA buy rice bags,” the text attached to the video read.

On July 20, the Indian government imposed a ban on the export of non-basmati white rice with “immediate effect” to ensure adequate availability of the essential commodity in the domestic market. The move has been taken to stabilise the domestic prices of rice that have “increased by 11.5% over a year and by 3% over the past month”, according to a government press release.

The government has clarified that the export ban is only on non-basmati white rice, and not on non-basmati parboiled rice and basmati rice.

According to a report in Daily Mail, Indian-Americans have been panic-buying rice in many US states, including Michigan, Texas, California, Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey and Alabama.

The Hindu Business Line reported that the export ban on Indian white rice has made the variety twice as expensive as organic rice. “A bag of 20 lb (about 9 kg) is now costing $46.99 against $15-16 till recently,” the outlet quoted an NRI as saying.

Another person shared that some stores are running out of white rice after hundreds of Indians thronged supermarkets in a bid to buy more and more bags of rice.

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