Matia comes down heavily on BBS
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
FE Report
Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury Tuesday came down heavily on Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) for providing misleading figures about this year's Boro output that downgraded earlier projection made by the government.
"There should be coordination among all government agencies while providing any information. They should speak the same thing," she said.
The influential minister made the comments at a meeting with high-ups of BBS, Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) and Space Research and Remote Sensing Organisation (SPARSO) at her secretariat office.
Her comments came after the BBS last week had made projection on the country's Boro output, downgrading the production to 17.4 million metric tonnes from the government's projection of 18.7 million metric tonnes.
The state-run statistics office made the projection on the basis of last year's output figure taking into account the situation of 'haor' areas where Boro crops cultivation was affected due to sudden floods and the falling growth of farming sector in the current fiscal year which has been downgraded to 2.77 per cent, down by half from a fiscal year ago.
The minister said there was no reason to provide such information at a time when the farmers have not cut half of their crops.
"We don't have any problem if any government agency discloses any information, but the figures must be supported by facts, not by assumption."
Matia said the government has supplied agri-inputs smoothly to the farmers on time this year. "We have also given subsidies on diesel and fertiliser. The use of non-urea fertiliser has also increased this year after we lowered the price."
She urged the BBS, SPARSO and DAE officials to work in a coordinated way before making any projection particularly about the agriculture sector to avoid any future misunderstanding.
The BBS projection also came at a time when the country was organising a two-day conference on food security in the capital attended by government high-ups and development partners, inflating government annoyance, officials said.
The officials said the BBS projection undermined the government's desperate bid to achieve Boro output target, which has already been revised in the face of droughts and floods.
Agriculture Secretary CQK Mustaq Ahmed, BBS Director General Md Shahjahan Ali Mollah and DAE Director General Md Sayeed Ali were, among others, present on the occasion.
Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury Tuesday came down heavily on Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) for providing misleading figures about this year's Boro output that downgraded earlier projection made by the government.
"There should be coordination among all government agencies while providing any information. They should speak the same thing," she said.
The influential minister made the comments at a meeting with high-ups of BBS, Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) and Space Research and Remote Sensing Organisation (SPARSO) at her secretariat office.
Her comments came after the BBS last week had made projection on the country's Boro output, downgrading the production to 17.4 million metric tonnes from the government's projection of 18.7 million metric tonnes.
The state-run statistics office made the projection on the basis of last year's output figure taking into account the situation of 'haor' areas where Boro crops cultivation was affected due to sudden floods and the falling growth of farming sector in the current fiscal year which has been downgraded to 2.77 per cent, down by half from a fiscal year ago.
The minister said there was no reason to provide such information at a time when the farmers have not cut half of their crops.
"We don't have any problem if any government agency discloses any information, but the figures must be supported by facts, not by assumption."
Matia said the government has supplied agri-inputs smoothly to the farmers on time this year. "We have also given subsidies on diesel and fertiliser. The use of non-urea fertiliser has also increased this year after we lowered the price."
She urged the BBS, SPARSO and DAE officials to work in a coordinated way before making any projection particularly about the agriculture sector to avoid any future misunderstanding.
The BBS projection also came at a time when the country was organising a two-day conference on food security in the capital attended by government high-ups and development partners, inflating government annoyance, officials said.
The officials said the BBS projection undermined the government's desperate bid to achieve Boro output target, which has already been revised in the face of droughts and floods.
Agriculture Secretary CQK Mustaq Ahmed, BBS Director General Md Shahjahan Ali Mollah and DAE Director General Md Sayeed Ali were, among others, present on the occasion.