Anisul Islam Noor :
The Food Ministry is planning to sell off four lakh tonnes of food grains worth Tk 1200.57 crore for only Tk 400.5 crore, incurring a loss of about Tk 800 crore.
The Food Department had purchased the grains — rice and wheat — for the social safety net programmes, Test relief and the Food For Work programme.
Although the members of Parliament (MPs) had wanted these food grains, they are now saying that they need money in lieu of the grains.
The Food Ministry has finalized its plan to sell the food grains through Village Market Sale and Open Market Sale (OMS) programmes. The Ministry will start selling the grains off soon as it gets a nod from the government high ups in this connection.
This information was collected from different documents of the Ministries of Food, Finance, and Disaster Management and Relief.
Speaking in Parliament recently, ruling party whip Atiur Rahman demanded that the government not give rice or wheat under TR and Food For Work programmes for the development work in the localities of the MPs.
In response, the Disaster Management and Relief Minister Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury told the Parliament that the process of allocating money instead of rice and wheat has already begun.
When contacted, Atiur Rahman said, “The market value of the rice and wheat that the Food Department is giving to the MPs has gone down. Currently, the price of rice and wheat meant for TR and Food for Work programmes is much less. That’s why the MPs have sought cash.”
Asked about the fate of the food grains, the ruling party MP said they had proposed to sell the grain off to the poor at a lower price.”
Director General of the Food Department Fayez Ahmed told media, “We have planned to distribute around 0.4 million tonnes of rice and wheat across the country through test relief and food for work programmes.”
“If we sell rice at Tk 15 per kilogram and wheat Tk 13, the store will finish in two months. We need the approval of the government,” he added.
Earlier, the MPs did not raise any question over the allotment of the 0.4 million tonnes of rice and wheat during the budget session of fiscal year 2015-16.
The MPs started sending demi-official letters (DO) from May, 2015 demanding wheat and rice.
The Food Department, then, used to buy wheat at Tk 28 while wheat was being sold at Tk 20 each kilogram in the local market.
A total of 80 Ministers and MPs sent the DO letters to increase the storage of the government warehouse.
Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) Director General KAS Murshid said that the consumers might have had doubts over the quality of the rice and wheat as their prices have already been slashed. The customers are not ready to buy the rice and wheat possibly because of their low quality.
Murshed also observed that the government should not sell the huge amount of rice and wheat in the open market because this can harm Boro farmers.
