Our Correspondent :
The mobile court of the district administration, BSTI and RAB-15 raided the warehouse of Messrs. Janata Nutrition Mills / Janata Auto Rice Mills listed by WFP in BSCIC area in Cox’s Bazar recently. The court fined Messrs. Janata Pushti Mill / Janata Auto Rice Mills a total of 80,000 taka for admitting involvement in the incident. During this operation, low quality rice was seized from the mill.
It is alleged that the owner of Messrs. Janata Nutrition Mill / Janata Auto Rice Mill was collecting low quality coarse rice through the eyes of the administration and WFP and then mixing it with nutritious rice and distributing it in sacks. In this way, the rice mill was cheating the consumers illegally.
According to sources, Maheshkhali VGD is about 100 MT, About 200 MT of Sadar VGD, about 700 MT of Ukhia VGD and about 100 MT of Lama School Feeding were sent from the food warehouse to Messrs. Janata Nutrition Mill / Janata Auto Rice Mill for mixing.
There is a rule that 300 grams of nutritious rice can be mixed in every 100 kg of rice and the price of nutritious rice is fixed at 300 taka per kg.
But even if it is to be mixed according to the ratio, in the hope of making more profit, Janata Auto Rice Mill owner brings nutritious rice from the market by bringing low quality or expired rice with small rice, half broken rice instead of rice.
Besides, there is a long-standing allegation that even though rice is raised in every upazila for timely distribution of VGD, it is not distributed and sold outside through its private business establishments. They are also accused of distributing substandard rice in the Union Parishad.
That is why the nutrition activities of the mill were stopped for several months. Although they informed their superiors about these irregularities, the process of covering up the whole incident started. It has been alleged that insects have also come in these rice due to collection of low quality or expired rice.
Nurul Akhtar, owner of Janata Auto Rice Mill, admitted that the mobile court of the district administration, BSTI and RAB-15 were involved in the operation, but expressed inability to talk about other issues.
In this regard, BSTI Assistant Director (Metrology) Md. Shahadat Hossain said, Janata Pusti Mill / Janata Auto Rice Mill was fined Tk 30,000 for using the BSTI logo without permission.
