Government plans to run Tk 10 per kg rice sale for two more months

The government plans to continue selling Tk 10 per kg rice for two more months to make room in the warehouses for stocking paddy bought from the farmers.

Agriculture Minister Abdur Razzaque shared the plan in a press conference on Wednesday.

Journalists asked him if the new initiative aimed to ensure fair price of farmers’ harvest.

“We haven’t announced any programme as yet; we’ll decide on the paddy price and how we can give an incentive to more farmers in a meeting (Thursday),” he said.

“The prime minister, too, wants to find a way to pay the farmers the price they deserve. Maybe we will buy more paddy or rice,” he said.

“We’ll finalise it tomorrow to increase the quantity and extend the time for selling rice Tk 10 per kg for two more months.”

The government has been selling 30 kg rice at Tk 10 per kg per month to 5 million ultra-poor families under the ‘food friendly programme’ since September 2016.

A poor family having an identification card gets a sack of 30 kg rice once a month from September to November and in March and April. Complaints arose about real poor people not getting the rice and the improper distribution system.

Village guard and village police will also get the Tk 10 kg rice, said the agriculture minister.

The government had decided to buy 1 million tonnes of boiled rice, 150,000 tonnes  of sundried rice, 150,000 Boro paddy and 50,000 tonnes of wheat during this Boro season. It also decided to buy a kg of rice and paddy for Tk 36 from Apr 25.

The middlemen took the opportunity when the government initiative to buy paddy and rice started late.
The farmers became helpless as the middlemen fixed the price to their own advantage. There have been incidents of farmers burning their harvest as they could not even secure the production cost.

The parliamentary standing committee on food ministry recommended the ministry to buy more paddy than its target. Also, tax has been increased to discourage the rice import.

The government will buy 400,000 tonnes of Boro paddy from farmers this year.

It also plans to involve millers to store paddy, said the minister.

“We can store the paddy in their warehouses as we pay them separately for storing it. We need this mechanism as we don’t have enough warehouses,” Razzaque said.

“We’ll provide the farmers with equipment at a cheap price. We have a plan to reduce the DAP cost. This is still under process.”