Bangladesh PM Hasina tells Cabinet to go for alternative sourcing of food grains before departing to India

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has directed her Cabinet to look for alternative sourcing of food grains as a precautionary measure before she left for India to further cement the bilateral relationship.

At the Cabinet meeting on Sunday, the Prime Minister directed officials not to be dependent on current food supplying countries and explore more markets to refill food stock as precautionary measures although the country was already in a comfortable position in terms of food grains stock, Bangladesh's BSS news agency reported.

At present, there is sufficient stock of food grains (rice and wheat) in the country, but agreements have already been made with different countries to import the amount of rice that will go from the warehouses to the people for open market sale (OMS) and food support activities.

The Bangladesh government has already begun selling rice at subsidised prices and plans to sell 7.65 lakh tonnes of rice to more than 1.5 crore people from low-income backgrounds in three months under the OMS and Food Friendly Programme.

''Instead of depending on specific countries from where we are collecting the food grains, the initiative should be taken to source one or two more places as precautionary measures so we don't face any challenge if any source fails to supply it," Hasina was quoted as saying by Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam during a briefing at Bangladesh Secretariat after the meeting.

He said the Prime Minister had instructed the concerned authorities to avoid any possible challenges in case any of the five countries designated for import were unable to provide food grains.

At present Bangladesh imports food grains from Russia, India, Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand.

To cover up the stock depletion, the government is importing five lakh tonnes of wheat from Russia and 3.3 lakh tonnes of rice from Vietnam and India. It has already signed an MoU with Myanmar to import another 2 lakh tonnes of rice.

Talking about the food grain situation, Khandker Anwarul said Bangladesh currently had more than 20 lakh metric tons of food grains in stock.

He further said that the price of rice had decreased by Taka 4-5 as the pressure on people has reduced significantly due to OMS and the implementation of food-friendly programmes. "It is giving good results'', he added.