The government has decided to double its ongoing Aman rice procurement target to 0.4 million tonnes from the original 0.2 million tonnes due to positive response from the millers, a food directorate official said.
"We have extended the procurement target to 0.4 million tonnes from the original 0.2 million tonnes following good responses from the millers," Badrul Hasan, Director (Procurement) of the Directorate General of Food (DGoF) told the FE Sunday.
Earlier, the target was increased by 0.1 million tonnes. And 0.1 million tonnes more has been added recently as per the decision of the ministry of food.
The government on November 27, 2013, had set the target to procure 0.2 million tonnes of Aman rice at Tk 30 per kilogramme (kg) from the millers.
The Aman procurement drive started on December 1, 2013, and was supposed to end during the current month (February). It will be extended until March as the target of procurement has been increased, the official added.
"We have already signed agreement with the millers for supplying rice. Out of the target, we have already stored 2, 43,000 tonnes of rice at the warehouses," Mr Hasan said.
The production cost of Aman rice is Tk 25.42 per kg and paddy Tk 17.02 per kg for the current 2013-14 fiscal year (FY).
The cost has increased by 2.32 per cent compared to that of the previous year due to increase in labour cost.
According to the food directorate, Bangladesh's average annual demand for food grains - mainly wheat and rice - is about 35.0 million tonnes, in which rice shares 31.0 million tonnes.
The public food storage capacity has been developed to 1.8 million tonnes recently. The country's stock should be between 1.5 to 1.6 million tonnes. Of this, rice should be 1.0 million tonnes. And with the Aman procurement drive, public storage will increase, according to the food department.
The present stock of food grain is 9,50,000 tonnes. Out of the quantity, 7,30,000 tonnes are rice and the rest wheat.
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