Agence France-Presse . London

Curry may be one of Britain's most popular dishes but the industry is facing a labour crisis due to restricted immigration from Bangladesh, a charity said Wednesday.

Curry houses are a standard feature on British high streets and the 9,000 odd restaurants have traditionally relied on Bangladeshi workers.

But since Britain threw open its labour market to eastern Europeans when the European Union expanded in 2004, restrictions on low-skilled non-EU workers have tightened. Keith Best, chief executive of the Immigration Advisory Service charity, said the new points-based system was causing a shortage of workers in curry houses.

'Despite many meetings with the immigration minister, who states that he understands the plight of this important industry to the UK, nothing is being done to improve the situation,' he said.

The government had mistakenly assumed that eastern Europeans would fill vacancies, Best said, but they have 'no cultural sensitivity towards or understanding of the curry industry'.

'It is a sad comment on government policy that it favours eastern Europeans over citizens of Commonwealth countries such as Bangladesh, whose preceding generations have contributed so much to the British economy and continue to do so.' He added: 'For many low-income families the only chance they have of eating out is to go for a curry.'

There are thought to be some 50,000 workers in the curry industry, the BBC reported. There were 283,063 ethnic Bangladeshis in Britain at the 2001 census, 0.5 per cent of the population.

Although most curry houses are still styled as Indian restaurants, the majority are run by Bangladeshi-origin Britons, while the cuisine is a mixture of dishes from across South Asia adapted for British tastes or else completely invented.

A series of surveys have named chicken tikka masala as Britain's most popular dish. Meanwhile, Alex Waugh of the Rice Association, an industry body, said prices were up 60 per cent year on year and the cost of basmati rice had nearly doubled.

'If you are a restaurant owner and you are buying a lot of rice you either reduce your margins or you put your prices up,' he said.

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