Pabna rice procurement in limbo

When the government is planning to store sufficient food grains for ensuring support in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the rice procurement drive in Pabna faces a hurdle due to alleged irregularities by a section of officials and 'low prices' offered to millers and farmers.

The government's rice procurement programme started over a month late on June 8 in Ishwardi upazila, the biggest hub of rice mills in the district, due to the irregularities in selecting suppliers.

This year Pabna food controller's office set a target to procure 24,571 tonnes of rice in the district, including 15,162 tonnes in Ishwardi, through 11 government-run centres, and 681 rice millers including 425 in the upazila got contract for the purpose.

"But dozens of closed mills, which abandoned husking paddy years ago, were included in the list of rice suppliers in exchange of bribe," Md Mizanur Rahman Mahalder, owner of Redwan Enterprise in Ishwardi upazila, told The Daily Star.

Following his written allegation submitted to the Anti-Corruption Commission and the Pabna deputy commissioner (DC) about the irregularities on May 3, the authorities stopped procurement programme in the upazila for the sake of investigation.

"After investigation we removed 45 mills from the previous list as they failed to fulfil conditions. Then procurement drive started in Ishwardi upazila on June 8. The upazila food officer was withdrawn due to the earlier fault in the list," said Iqbal Bahar, district food controller.

"Most of the millers are not showing interest to supply rice to procurement centres despite having contract for it. If any mill owner violates contract, we will take action," he said.

Since start of the procurement drive on June 8, only 765 tonnes of rice has been procured in Ishwardi.

Rice traders said they are not interested to supply rice to government centres due to the poor price.

"Government is paying Tk 36 for a kg of rice but our production cost is Tk 39," Fozlu Malitha, president of upazila rice mill owners association.

Meanwhile, farmers have brought only 28 tonnes of paddy (rice before husking) to government procurement centres in the district since the collection drive began on April 26 with a target to procure 6,695 tonnes of paddy in the district this season.

"Government price of paddy is Tk 26 per kg but it is selling for Tk 29 to Tk 30 in the local market for the last few weeks," said Md Kamruzzaman, a farmer of Durgapur village in Sujanagar upazila.

"I supplied paddy to a government's procurement centre last year but now I am not interested to sell the crop there due to the low price.

"Besides employees at government centres often decline to receive paddy directly from us, claiming that it contains huge moisture. But the problem is solved if we take the help of their brokers. Besides, the price money is not paid timely," he said.

Talked with The Daily Star, Pabna DC Kabir Mahamud said, "No irregularity will be tolerated in government's food procurement programme. We will take action if there is any specific allegation."

"The procurement is getting late as Pabna farmers harvested the crop late. We are expecting fulfilment of the target," said the official, also president of district food procurement committee.