The government will provide millers Tk 1.25 for a kilogram of rice over the procurement price as an 'incentive' aiming to collect the targeted 1.5 million tonnes of Boro rice by August 31 deadline.
"We have offered Tk 1.25 as incentive against procurement of per kg rice," said food and disaster management secretary Wahiduzzaman Mollah on Tuesday.
The incentive that will be in addition to procurement price of Tk 28 for per kg rice will be offered only to the dealers who will sell rice to the food ministry before August 10 and sell the rice again under the current Boro collection drive.
"Rice millers that have already supplied rice and will further sell it will qualify for the incentive," said Mr. Wahiduzzaman.
The decision to offer the incentive has been taken after the rice millers and dealers pressed hard for upward adjustment of the price. The millers have cited that the current sale price is lower than that of market rate.
The government is purchasing per kg rice at Tk 28, but the current market rate is about Tk 34 for per kg.
The lower than market price has discouraged the rice millers to sell their product to the food ministry.
So far, the food ministry could achieve about 50 per cent of the procurement target of 1.5 million tonnes.
Of the targeted amount, 1.2 million tonne is rice and the rest is paddy.
As of Monday, the food ministry collected 0.69 million tonnes of rice and 44,000 tonnes of paddy from some 14000 rice millers and dealers across the country.
Besides, the rice millers have struck deals with the ministry until August 10 for supply of another 0.5 million tonnes of rice, said Mr. Wahiduzzaman.
He said they have not seen much enthusiasm among the rice millers to make further deals to receive the benefit of the incentive.
"Only a few of them approached for further agreement in the first two days of the incentive offer," he said.
The food and disaster management secretary, however, hoped that response for fresh agreement would increase in the remaining three weeks of the current procurement drive.
Such incentive, according to him, offered twice in the past to make the annual procurement drive successful.
The government last fiscal failed to meet the procurement target of rice from the local market due to loss of Aman crop due to the successive floods during July-August and a cyclone in November.
Apart from 1.5 million tonnes of Boro, the government has set a target to collect some 3.2 million tonnes of food grains in the current fiscal year.
The rest of the food grains will be collected from next Aman crop and international market through import.
The import includes 0.5 million tonnes of rice from India under the deal between two countries struck early this year. Almost half of the quantity has already reached the country.
