Having failed to raise enough money by selling low quality food grains from two social safety net programmes, the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief has requested the Finance Ministry to convert the grains into cash for setting up solar and biogas plants in rural areas.
On Thursday, Disaster Management and Relief Minister Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya wrote a letter to Finance Minister AMA Muhith with the request.
In the letter, of which the Dhaka Tribune has obtained a copy, minister Maya referred to a decision made by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in October 2014 to raise cash by selling half of the food grains – rice and wheat – from the Test Relief (TR) and Food for Work programmes.
However, district deputy commissioners, who are implementing the solar and biogas project, informed the Disaster Management Ministry that the grains are of very low quality and hence not selling even at half the prices at which they had been procured.
For example, the government-fixed price of every tonne of rice is Tk36,385 and each tonne of wheat is Tk29,178. But, at the field level, this rice and wheat are selling for a maximum of Tk15,000 and Tk14,000 respectively.
As a result, they had not been able to maintain the desired standard in procuring and installing the solar and biogas plants, the minister said.
He also said that this might also lead to audit objections if they have to purchase the plants at prices lower than the cost price of the food grains.
The letter reads that the Disaster Management Ministry is supposed to convert a total of 400,000 tonnes of food grains from the two social safety net programmes.
So, if the Finance Ministry accepts the request, it will have to give the Disaster Management Ministry over Tk1,191.94 crore instead of the food grains.
Dhirendra Debnath Shambu, chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Disaster Management and Relief Ministry, told the Dhaka Tribune: “Setting up solar and bio-gas plants in the rural areas is a good decision because it will generate job and income in those areas.
“But I have doubts whether the renewable energy programmes could be started during this fiscal year as the prices of rice and wheat will have to refixed,” he added.
On Thursday, a inter-ministerial meeting was held at the Finance Division. Top officials of the two ministries and eight deputy commissioners attended the meeting to refix the price of the low quality rice and wheat.
But Finance Division failed to refix the rices because the field-level prices that the deputy commissioners gave varied over a wide range – from Tk18,000 per tonne to Tk36,000.
In the 2015-16 fiscal year, a total 400,000 tonnes of wheat was allocate for the Test Relief programme. Another 400,000 – including 160,000 tonnes of wheat and 40,000 tonnes of rice – went to the Food for Work programme.
According to the PMO proposal, half of these food grains were to be sold and the cash was to be used for setting up renewable energy plants for rural households.
According to the World Bank, only 40% of the rural households in Bangladesh have access to grid electricity. Even those connected to the grid face frequent power cuts due to lack of generation capacity.
