Govt hopeful of achieving Boro procurement target

Talha Bin Habib

The government could achieve its Boro rice procurement target this year as the concerned department has been getting positive responses from the millers since the inception of the drive this month, officials said.

The government has started procuring Boro rice from June 5 last. This year the target for procurement of Boro rice has been fixed at about 0.6 million tonnes. The procurement of per kilogram (kg) of rice has been fixed by the government at Tk 29.

The concerned department has already stored nearly 0.1 million tonnes of Boro rice in the government depots so far due to the positive responses from the millers.

"We have already stored about 83,000 tonnes of Boro rice at the Central Supply Depot (CSD) and Local Supply Depot (LSD) of the government since the start of the procurement drive," an official of the procurement division of Directorate General of Food told the FE Monday.

He said the food department has already made a deal with the millers for supplying rice in line with the agreed price between the government and the millers.

"We had already made deal with 9,640 millers to supply rice to the government," Director (Procurement) of Directorate General of Food Md Badrul Hasan told the FE Monday.

He said so far the millers have agreed to supply about 0.432 million tonnes of rice. The rest amount of rice, as per the government target, will be fulfilled easily since the concerned department is going to sign more contracts with more suppliers (rice millers) soon.

He said the government has set September the deadline for rice procurement drive, and it would be possible to achieve the target even before the timeframe.

"We strongly believe that the government target to procure 0.6 million tonnes of rice from internal sources can be possible even by July if favourable weather persists in the country," he added.

Asked whether the price of Boro procurement should benefit the farmers, he said the price of per maund of coarse paddy is now between Tk 650 and Tk 700.

"If we consider the present market price of paddy and procurement price of rice by the government then it can ensure guarantees of benefits to both the farmers and the millers," he asserted.

It is worth mentioning that last year the government purchased Boro rice at Tk 28 a kg. According to the present food stock situation, the government has 0.735 million tonnes of rice and wheat against a maximum capacity of stocking 1.5 million tonnes.

The food planning and monitoring committee at a meeting recently set the target for buffer rice stock at 1.1 million tonnes for the 2011-12 fiscal. About 5.2 million tonnes of food grains have already been imported through the public and private channels. The figure will reach 5.5 million tonnes as there is a possibility to import more 0.3 million tonnes of food grains during the last one week of the current 2010-11 fiscal.

Last year (2009-10 fiscal) about 3.5 millions tonnes of foodgrains through the private and public channels were imported.

The government had a target to procure about 1.2 million tonnes of rice and paddy from the internal sources last year (2009-10). Out of the procurement target, the government was able to procure only 0.56 million tonnes of rice from the internal sources. And out of 0.15 million tonnes of wheat procurement target, only 8,000 tonnes were procured last year (2009-10 fiscal), according to the concerned department.

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