Staff Reporter :The High Court has ordered the government not to force anyone to accept the substandard wheat imported from Brazil.At the same time, the HC also ruled that the government should take back the Brazilian wheat if any consumer wants to return it after distribution.The bench of justices Quazi Reza-Ul Hoque and Abu Taher Md Saifur Rahman made the observation on Wednesday, resolving a petition filed over the issue.The order of HC came at a time when government claimed that the 2 lakh tones of wheat purchased for Tk 4 billion from Brazil is ‘fit for human consumption’.”Based on the food department’s report, the court said that the wheat was fit for human consumption as the report did not mention that the wheat is non edible,” said Deputy Attorney General Tapash Kumar Biswas. On June 29, a lawyer, Pavel Mia, filed the petition on the basis of reports in a number of national dailies.In his petition, he sought the High Court’s directive in testing the “rotten wheat” at the labs of Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institute [BSTI] and Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute. He also demanded a probe by Anti-Corruption Commission [ACC] in this regard.On June 30, the HC asked the authorities concerned to clarify whether the wheat, which was imported from Brazil for Tk4 billion, is suitable for human consumption. The court, however, observed that the imported wheat “fit for human consumption” apparently based on a report of Directorate General of Food, which was submitted before it on July 5 in the wake of huge controversy that the wheat is not unfit for human consumption.The report cited previously conducted tests by the Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research [BCSIR], Agriculture Research Institute [ARI] and the Dhaka University, which had cleared the wheat as fit for consumption.It also said that the food ministry collected 57 samples from warehouses across the country and tested it in the food department’s laboratory, which also found it suitable for human consumption. It also said that out of the 205,128 tonnes of the Brazilian wheat, 174,926 tonnes have been distributed over the last four months. Meanwhile, the Brazilian wheat has already been supplied to police, BGB, Ansar units and to various dealers and mills. It has also been provided for Test relief and Foor-for-Work programmes.The court asked the secretary for Food and director general of food to inform it about the quality of the imported wheat in the next 72 hours. Recently, media reports said that around 200,000 tonnes of the wheat imported from Brazil and supplied by Singapore-based contractor Olam International was of substandard quality.Later, a couple of studies read that the wheat imported from the South American country in February and March is of sub-standard quality and a significant volume is found to be rotten.One of those studies was conducted by the BCSIR and the other by the laboratory at the Directorate General of Food – both arranged by the government.The food directorate study found that six out of the 30 tested samples of the Brazilian wheat were partly rotten. The samples were collected from 30 different districts through the office of the local deputy commissioners.The wheat samples collected from Magura, Patuakhali, Sherpur, Bogra, Sirajganj and Joypurhat district were partly rotten. “There are living insects in the samples and this [the wheat] could be distributed after controlling the insects in the proper way,” the study concluded. The BCSIR test report, dated June 28, says: “All the supplied samples contained higher amount of shrunken and broken kernels than the supplied specification.The 10 specific parameters against which the wheat was tested by BCSIR were: test weight, heat damage kernels, damage kernels, presence of foreign materials, shrunken and broken kernels, contrasting classes, wheat of other classes, protein, moisture and dock age.Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ordered a probe committee be formed but that has not yet happened.
