‘No scope of famine in country’
Staff Reporter :
There will be no scope of food crisis or famine in the country as the government has adequate food grain stock of 20 lakh metric tonnes in its godowns.
“During tenures of previous governments, the highest stock of food grain was 16-17 lakh tonnes. But, we have a stock of 20 lakh tonnes in public godowns having the capacity of stocking 21.60 lakh tonnes. So, I can give you guarantee that there will be no food crisis or famine in the country,” Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder said while speaking to media at Kishoreganj circuit house after exchanging views with the Directorate General of Food officials on Tuesday.
He asked the DG Food officials to conduct the internal food grain procurement drive of the government properly with sincerity, so that farmers don’t need to face harassment during supplying food grains.
The minister said that the government is constructing silos with a capacity of 5.5 lakh tonnes to stock more rice and wheat. Hopefully, the silos would be inaugurated by September to October this year.
“For the interest of farmers, the government has taken steps to build silos in Haor region, so that they can stock their paddy. The project has already been cleared by the government and consultant has also been appointed. After completion of designing, the construction work would be started,” he added.
Regarding the facilities of the silo, he said, “The farmers will go the godown with wet paddy. There will be four driers in the silo. More than 30 tonnes of paddy would be dried and cleaned in every hour and send to the storage bins. Farmers will get their pay receipts and collect their money from banks. We have a target to install 200 such silos across the country. The PM has already given approval for 30 silos.”
He said that in this Boro season, the government will buy some 16.5 lakh tons of paddy and rice from local production. Of those, four lakh tons are paddy and 12.5 lakh tons rice. Every kg of paddy would be bought at Tk30 while parboiled rice at Tk44.
