Unusual delay, cost rise in completing food storage project unacceptable

It is really disconcerting that the government project aiming to enhance the food security in Bangladesh has made less than 50 per cent progress in the last 10 years with spending Tk 3,569 crore. The slow pace of materialising “Modern Food Storage Facilities Project” is just mindboggling.

According to the plan of the project, the government planned to establish eight silos across the country with two for storing wheat while the others for storing rice. The materialisation of this project is following the same pattern of delay and extension of timeframe for completion with concomitant increase in allocation of its budget.

Besides establishing eight large silos, it was also decided that five lakh rural households of the country’s 63 upazilas would be given small silos for storing food grains that could be sold or consumed during times of scarcity. But unfortunately after about a decade since the project was started in 2014, not even half of it completed.

Monitoring of the country’s overall food stock, including transportation and market supervision, was also supposed to be digitalised with an aim to address inefficiencies, according to a report of a national daily yesterday. But the delay forced the authorities to revise the project cost by 86 per cent from Tk 1,920 crore and another two years has been sought for its implementation.
Poor planning, the snail’s pace with which crucial infrastructure projects are implemented, project funds are increased as well as massive corruption that is involved have brought the country’s economy to its present precarious state.

In this particular project, the silos were initially planned to be built in Dhaka, Narayanganj, Chattogram, Mymensingh, Tangail, Khulna, Barishal and Brahmanbaria. However, the food department later cancelled Dhaka’s silo, as selection of location could not be ascertained.
A poor nation like Bangladesh can no longer bear the inefficiency of people who plan and implement the project with a big budget. The Modern Food Storage Facilities Project was scheduled for completion by June 2020. Even after ten years on the project, we are doubtful whether the authorities can tell us when it will be completed.