A goodwill gesture on part of India to export around 5,00,000 tonne rice to neighbouring Bangladesh, which is facing a huge shortage of food grains, has been slightly delayed because of logistical problems.

India had decided to export rice under a sovereign guarantee programme since ban on rice exports came into effect in early April 2008.

Only a ?very small quantity? of the promised rice contracted by the three state-run trading firms, namely State Trading Corporation (STC), MMTC, PEC India and National Agriculture Cooperative Federation (NAFED) has left Indian shores till date. According to official sources, the entire consignment would take another couple of months to be delivered.

STC, MMTC, PEC and NAFED have agreed to supply around 4,00,000 tonne rice to Bangladesh, while the remaining was to be supplied by the West Bengal Government.

While, the West Bengal Government has exported most of the 1,00,000 tonne rice because of its proximity to the eastern neighbour, exports from the four PSUs has not started in full swing, more than two months after the Indian government signed a formal agreement with Bangladesh, a senior official from one of the trading agencies involved in the export said on Monday.

?The delay is not only because of logistic problems, but also because of a ban on movement of food grains by the Andhra Pradesh government, from where we had planned to source rice,? the official said.

With rice becoming scarce across the world and a sharp rise in global prices, the Bangladesh government had requested its trusted neighbour for mitigating the crisis.

Sources said that the Bangladesh government wants around 1.5 million tonne of rice to ease its crisis, of which India is among the very few countries that has agreed to supply rice as all other big exporters such as Vietnam and Thailand have curbed overseas shipments.

The paucity of rice in world markets has also ruled out the possibility of a global import tender by Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, India, which is all set to harvest a record 97 million tonne of rice in the crop year that ends September is in a position to export substantial quantities of rice, but is holding on to the supply due to fear of spike in local prices.

Recently, officials from the commerce ministry said that the government would consider demand for export of rice from less developed nations on a ?case-by-case? basis.

India re-imposed a ban on all non-basmati rice exports in early April to augment local supplies and also to check spurt in local prices. Earlier, it had imposed a similar ban in October, but later relaxed it under pressure from traders associations and farmers, who feared a sharp drop in open market prices because of the ban.

It allowed export of only high-priced non-basmati rice. However, later it not only re-imposed the ban on non-basmati rice, but the government also for the first time fixed a minimum export price on basmati (aromatic) rice.

India is one of the world?s largest exporters of basmati rice and annually exports around 1.5 million tonne to 2.0 million tonne of the rice varieties.

Though, the government had exempted exports as part of the food aid programme from the ambit of the ban, but little demand came from around the world barring Bangladesh, which is facing a huge rice crisis because of large-scale damage to its standing rice.

Nigeria, another country that is facing a shortage of rice has demanded around 5,00,000 tonne of rice from India to ease its local crisis.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, during a recent visit to Bhutan assured supply of around 50,000 tonne of rice as a food-aid.

However, with the first trance of such rice exports not getting off to a brisk start, it remains to be seen how demand from other countries will be met.