PM turns down fertiliser price hike proposal

Considering farmers' interests, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday turned down the proposal for increasing urea fertiliser price.

In the weekly cabinet meeting at the secretariat, she said the government would not raise the fertiliser price.

Meeting sources said the issue came up at the meeting as Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury wanted to know from Industries Secretary Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan about the plan to increase the fertiliser price.

Hasina then asked Industries Minister Amir Hossain Amu about the plan.

The minister responded by saying that he was unaware of any plan to hike urea price, sources said.

Asking the industries secretary to shelve the plan to hike the price of urea fertiliser to Tk 22 a kg from Tk 18, the PM said the ministry alone could not take such a policy decision.

The fertiliser is sold by the government, subsidised by over 50 percent.

Hasina also told Industries Secretary Mosharraf that he had no authority to take such a decision.

She said Bangladesh has become self-reliant in food production. There is no reason for hiking the fertiliser price.

In January, the agriculture ministry also rejected the industries secretary's proposal for raising the urea fertiliser price.      

The cabinet approved the draft of the "Standards of Weights and Measures Act-2017", doubling the amount of fine to Tk 1 lakh from Tk 50,000 for cheating people.

The draft law was formulated to improve the existing weight and measurement system, and the system would reach the international standards, Cabinet Secretary Shafiul Alam told journalists after the meeting.

The cabinet also gave the go-ahead to the drafts of the "Bangladesh Industrial Institutions Nationalisation Act-2017" and "Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation Act-2017".

It adopted two obituary motions on the deaths of Mijarul Quayes, Bangladesh ambassador to Brazil and former foreign secretary, and engineer Ariful Huq, younger brother of Law Minister Anisul Huq.