The regional food controller鈥檚 office in Rajshahi on Tuesday recommended the food ministry to take punitive action against 913 rice mills in the Rajshahi division for not providing rice to the government as per agreement.
The regional food office came up with the move on Tuesday after it failed to achieve its set target of procuring 1,11,263 tonnes of boiled rice from the mill owners in the current season.
According to the official documents, the regional office has managed to procure 94,707 tonnes of rice.
The documents stated that despite an agreement, 61 rice mills did not provide any rice to the government warehouses, 70 rice mills provided half of the agreement鈥檚 rice, and 30 rice mills provided 80 per cent of the agreement鈥檚 rice while 751 rice mills neither signed any agreement with the government nor provide any rice to the warehouses despite being eligible for contracts.
Omar Faruk, assistant deputy director of Rajshahi regional food controller鈥檚 office, said on Tuesday that they sent the list of 913 rice mills to the food ministry, requesting to take action against them for not providing rice to the government.
He said that they would implement what the ministry asked.
Meanwhile, Kamal Ahmed, owner of Kamal Auto Rice Mill, told 抖阴精品 that despite an agreement, most of the mill owners did not provide rice to the government warehouses since the price of coarse varieties of rice in the local market was higher than the government set price of Tk 47 a kilogram.
He said that he provided 70 per cent of the agreement鈥檚 rice despite losses with the fear that his licence could be cancelled.
Kamal said that the government would now imposed a fine on him for not providing the 100 per cent rice to the government and deducted the money from his deposits.
This year, the regional food office also failed to achieve its target of procuring aman paddy as farmers got relatively fair prices in the local markets than the government-set price and did not provide paddy to the government warehouses.
The regional office managed to procure only 395 tonnes of aman paddy against a target of 56,359 tonnes in eight districts.