Aman procurement drive may fail in N dists

GAIBANDHA, Jan 18: Aman procurement drive in the northern districts may not succeed for want of adequate space in this current season.

Earlier, the government decided to convert all the fertiliser godowns of BADC into food godowns. But the decision is yet to be implemented due to some unknown reasons. The Food Department fixed up Aman procurement target of two lakh matric tons in this current season.

According to the statistics, a total 171 food godowns are available in the Food department. The capacity of these godown are four lakh 67 thousand matric tons of foodgrains. Of them one is Silo of 25,000 tons capacity and three others Central Supply Depots (CSD) of 30,000 matric tons capacity. Besides, the remaining godowns are of 4 lakh 12 thousand tons capacity.

At present the godowns remained jam packed with last year's Boro crops of one lakh 75 thousand tons, test relief and food for works and others programme's wheat of one lakh 15 thousand tons. There is no space in food godowns for the accommodation of Aman paddy. So the concerned department could not start Aman procurement drive on time. Last year the Food department started Aman procurement campaign in the month of November. But last year till the end of December the progress was very little.

Present price of Aman paddy is gradually decreasing in the market of northern districts as government procurement is most absent here. At present Aman paddy is being sold in between Tk 210 to 220 per 40 kg bag.

According to the growers, they harvested a bumper Aman paddy in areas other than flood prone areas. In flood affected areas this year Aman crops have been badly affected due to prolonged stagnant of flood water.

In Gaibandha a model farmer named Kamrul Hasan of village Kholahati under Gaibandha Sadar thana told that every day huge paddy are found stockpiled in the markets due to acute shortage of customers. So the price of paddy has shaply decreased in the markets.

This season a total of 10 lakh 40 thousand hectares of land had been brought under Aman cultivation in eight northern districts.