Photo: Collected
Food Minister Afroza Khanam has said buying paddy from genuine farmers is extremely important to keep farmers going. Stressing the issue to food department officials, she said Prime Minister Tarique Rahman wants to ensure that farmers do not fall into any kind of helpless situation.
The minister said that whatever paddy is procured in the coming days, farmers will bring it to the procurement centres themselves. If any steps are needed to make this easier for farmers, those will be taken as well.
A view-exchange meeting with food department officials of Chattogram district was held at the conference room of the Chattogram Circuit House on Monday morning. The minister made the remarks while speaking there as the chief guest.
The food minister said there are plans to take steps to see whether farmers can be paid in an easy way through bKash or any other digital medium, so that they do not have to go through hassles such as opening bank accounts to get paid after supplying paddy. Initially, a pilot project will be run in three districts; if it succeeds there, paddy will later be procured from farmers across the country using the same method.
The minister said their main goal is to maintain food stocks properly. The stocks must contain quality rice and wheat, and attention must be paid to ensuring that the quantity is sufficient. Natural disasters can strike at any moment, so there must be enough stocks to deal with any disaster, she said, asking everyone to keep this in mind.
Addressing the officials, the food minister said the quality of imported rice must be ensured when it arrives. If it is ever found to be even one percent below the set standard, that rice cannot be accepted, as the responsibility for it falls on them. She also said she found the rice to be good in all the warehouses in Chattogram she visited over the past two days.
After hearing from the officials about various problems in the food department, Minister Afroza Khanam said it will take some time to resolve the issues the officials had been deprived of for a long 17 years. She said those who were in government before could have resolved the problems the officials are now raising if they had wanted to, but they did nothing for the country and its people.
She said the prime minister mentioned a food-friendly programme for the people of the country in his election manifesto and gave importance to ensuring that farmers get fair prices. They are working with that in view, so that people can get safe food to their homes on time.
The food minister said it is not possible to solve all the problems at once. Problems that go against the public — those causing harm to people or creating difficulties in officials’ work — will be prioritised and efforts will be made to resolve them step by step. She also remarked that duties must be carried out in line with what Prime Minister Tarique Rahman wants.
Minister Afroza Khanam urged that the distribution seal must be on sacks of distributed food. She said whenever anything happens, the Directorate General of Food is blamed first, although the directorate’s work ends with distribution, and it is not responsible for what anyone does outside after that. So officials must check whether the distribution seal is on the packets, and everyone needs to be vigilant on this point.
