Amid government’s decision to import rice and issuance of warning against the rice mill owners to shun wrong-doings, the government, to increase food grains stock, has increased its time limit for another 15 days to procure more rice from the country.
At the same time, it has been decided to import rice from abroad to avoid any scarcity of rice.
Such a decision came into light on Monday last as the government's procurement target was not fulfilled within prior given time. Meanwhile, the Food Department said disciplinary action would be taken against those traders who did not supply rice to the government warehouses as per the agreement.
As per the government’s development project to help the ultra-poor, it has already started distributing rice among them. The program will continue for the next three consecutive months where a total of 4.5 lakh tonnes of rice are required. However, until August last the government has a stock of 11 lakh tonnes of rice, which was 16.24 lakh tonnes in the same period last year.
On the other hand, a similar scenario is observed in paddy procurement too. It’s procurement target was eight lakh tonnes but till August collection stood at 2.8 lakh tonnes. The procurement process for rice began on April 26 and paddy on May 7. Within this period, rice mill owners who are unable to provide rice and paddy as per the agreement now have to go through strong punishment. In the meantime, a letter to this end has been sent to different district administrators, informed the Department of Food officials.
Additional Secretary of Procurement and Supply Wing of Food Ministry Md Tahmidul Islam told The Bangladesh Post that, “We have extended our time limit to meet our procurement target both for rice and paddy. In the meantime, we will allow new mill owners if any of them wants to provide rice and paddy to the government warehouses. As we have already written to the concerned district administrators, after ending the extended time limit we will go for action.”
On the other hand, while asking about importing rice from abroad, he replied that “We have already issued a letter in this regard, but the decision is yet to make from which countries we will import rice to meet our demand.”
Meanwhile, food minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder in his recent speech said, “Those rice mill owners who do not supply rice and paddy as per the agreement will be made blacklisted. Their security money and licenses will be confiscated if they finally fail to supply the inked amount of rice and paddy. They will not get any incentives from the government.”
On the other hand, rice mill owners claimed that due to the outbreak of coronavirus and floods most of the rice mills were closed for a long time. As the situation is now turning around and the production process has started, they will try to meet the government demand.
Bangladesh Rice Merchant Association vice president Molla Kawser Alam Khan told The Bangladesh Post that, “As we are failed to provide sufficient stock of rice due to some unavoidable circumstances, we urge the government to support for overcoming those crises. As production has started, we will try our best to meet the procurement demand.”
