Subsidised food for the poor

The government has decided to provide the poor with subsidised food, despite experiencing a bad crop year owing to early deluge in the Boro-rich haor regions.

Finance minister's budget speech had a clear reflection that the government would go for a much bigger food subsidy this time and give food doles to those in need.

But critics see no apparent move to arrest the high prices of rice in the market and find the government's decision to import the staple too late a response against the backdrop of traders' price manipulation.

"We have plans to procure 28 lakh metric tonnes and distribute 27 lakh metric tonnes of food grains in FY 2017-18. Besides, under a food aid programme, we will provide food assistance to 50 lakh low income families for 5 months at an administered price," Muhith announced in his budget speech yesterday.

M Asaduzzaman, a distinguished fellow at the country's premier think-tank Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), however, finds nothing much to cheer about the steps.

"Why had the government allowed the food stock to deplete in the first place letting the traders take advantage of the situation? And once stock depleted fast in public granaries, the government should have gone for import in quick time," he said.

Government's rice stock had a nosedive to less than 2.5 lakh MT in May, a six-year low at a time when  early flashfloods damaged, in most conservative estimates, over 10 lakh MT of Boro rice in several Haor districts with Sunamganj being the hard-hit.

Prices of coarse rice rose by at least Tk 10 a kilogram in this May-June comparing to the same period last year. The government went for floating tenders to buy 1 lakh MT of rice from the international market last month.

In yesterday's budget proposal, the government almost doubled food subsidy to Tk 4546 crore from the outgoing fiscal's Tk 2821 crore.

The plan is -- the government will import more than 10 lakh MT of food grains from the international market and procure 16 lakh MT more from the domestic markets and provide millions of rural and urban poor with food doles in the form of Tk 10 a kg subsidised rice, vulnerable group feeding (VGF), open market sale (OMS), food for work (FFW) and numerous other programmes.

With next general elections approaching, this budget also sees a rise in number of beneficiaries under the social safety net programmes (SSNPs) under which the government plans to give more allowances to old people, widows, lactating poor mothers, transgenders and bede community people.

Asaduzzaman, however, said the concept should have been how to address the “widening wealth gap” in the society, instead of giving highly subsidised food to the poor.

In the budget, the government kept Tk 9000 crore as agricultural subsidy though last fiscal year's similar amount of allocation had ultimately been trimmed to Tk 6000 crore.

Besides, finance minister offered some boost in farm machinery in the form of tax relief.

Muhith said, "Use of modern method or mechanical procedure in the agricultural sector has been increased substantially than before. We have to import these machineries. However, in order to manufacture the major portion of agricultural machineries locally, last year we issued a statutory order fixing only 1 percent duty on the raw materials and components of such machineries. This year some more equipment has been proposed to be included in the facility."

He hoped, as a result, most of the agricultural machineries would be produced in the country and farmers would be able to buy them at a cheap price.

He proposed a net agriculture budget to the tune of Tk 24430 crore, an over 4,000 crore more than the outgoing fiscal's revised budget.

Except for description of some ongoing projects, which Muhith said, would help protect the haor regions from flashfloods, there was nothing additional in the proposed budget for recouping the losses the Haor people suffered in the form of lost paddy, livestock and fishery.

The finance minister noted that "Now-a-days, the real wage of agricultural labourers is increasing with overall hike in wage rates across the country, which in turn, plays a vital role in reducing poverty and inequality. We intend to sustain this trend. We plan to continue providing necessary credit and input assistance in the agriculture sector to prevent rise of unemployment in this sector."

Muhith said, "Our economy depends on agriculture. Despite industrial expansion and extensive development in the IT sector, around 45 percent of total population still depends on agriculture for their livelihood."

In his speech, the minister also cited introduction of genetically modified technology as one of the programmes that the government wanted to promote for increasing agricultural production and improving the state of farmers.

He also mentioned other programmes like; innovation of rice variety tolerant to adverse climate, reduction of post-harvest damage to crops, establishment of agricultural industries, supply of improved quality seeds, irrigation extension, establishment of quarantine centres to ensure safe and risk-free imports, innovation of adversity tolerant variety of jute, research for the innovation of diversified jute products, increasing the use of environment friendly agricultural technology, increasing the use of renewable energy in agricultural sector and modernisation of value chain system in this sector.