Adamdighi (Bogura) Correspondent :
About 230 rice mills (husking mills) in Adamdighi Upazila of Bogura have been closed due to continuous losses. Out of all these rice mills, 178 are completely closed and 52 rice mills have had their licenses suspended as they could not supply rice as per the agreement entered into with the government. At present, 54 ordinary rice mills (husking) and 11 automatic rice mills are operating in the upazila. As most of the rice mills were shut down, about seven thousand workers associated with rice mills lost their jobs and became unemployed.
At present they are living a subhuman life. According to the sources of Adamdighi Upazila Food Department, the total number of ordinary rice mills in the upazila is 284 and the number of automatic rice mills is 14. The licenses of 52 general vehicles and three automatic vehicles have been suspended for breach of contract. At present, 11 automatic and 54 ordinary trains are in operation. The target of rice collection in the upazila during the current Amon season was 4 thousand 700 metric tons. About 4000 metric tons of the collected rice was supplied by automatic rice mills and the remaining 700 metric tons was supplied by ordinary rice mills. Research has revealed that since the upazila is located in a paddy-rich area and the country’s largest food warehouse (Santahar CSD and Silo), the chatal business has developed here like a frog’s umbrella since the 90s. Many people started rice mill business by making chatals on the crop land.
Due to the good profit in the business, its continuity continued, but at one point its speed stopped after 2000 when automatic rice mills were built one after another in the area. Due to the rapid production of rice directly from raw paddy in automatic rice mill without parboiling and drying, the normal rice mill business stopped. Unable to compete commercially with automated vehicles, one after another conventional vehicles were shut down due to losses. Matiur Rahman, the owner of Musfiq rice mill in the upazila, said that his normal rice threshing capacity is 154 metric tons in 15 days, 140 sacks of rice are required per day (75 kg per sack), but the automatic threshing machine called Baishakhi can thresh 48 thousand metric tons in three units in 15 days.