Aman procurementdrive from today

FE Team | Published: December 07, 2009 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

FE Report
The government will launch its 0.3-million tonnes of food grain purchase drive for the current 'Aman' season from today (Monday).
"The Aman procurement drive will kick off from December 7, 2009 in accordance with the decision of Food Planning and Monitoring Unit (FPMU)," a senior government official told the FE Sunday.
A recent meeting of the FPMU had set the target of purchasing 0.2 million tonnes of rice and 0.15 million tonnes of paddy for the current Aman season.
The meeting also fixed the prices of paddy and rice at Tk 14 per kg and Tk 22 per kg respectively.
According to officials, the Directorate General of Food will conduct the Aman collection drive though its existing 604 local storage centers (LSD) and 12 central storage centers (CSD) across the country.
Necessary measures have been taken to make its Aman procurement programme successful, they mentioned, adding the drive would continue until March 2010.
The government has taken a decision to purchase about 50 per cent of the targeted paddy directly from growers.
"The decision to collect at least 50 per cent of the targeted paddy from farmers has been taken for ensuring prices support for the rice farmers," a highly placed source of the food and disaster management minister said.
According to the decision, the authorities will make rice purchase deals with local millers in such a manner so that they will be compelled to buy paddy from the farmers at the official rate of Tk 14 per kg, the source noted.
The government was able to procure 162,976 tonnes of rice in the last Aman season against the official target of 200,000 tonnes, despite the fact that official procurement rates of both rice and paddy were considerably higher than their open market prices.
Inadequate storage capacity was identified as one of the main reasons behind the shortfall in the last year's Aman collection target, sources said.
They also indicated that the space shortage might undermine the Aman purchase drive this year also.