Food warehouses' capacity to be increased to 29 lakh tonnes

In his budget speech, Finance Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali announced a plan to increase the storage capacity of food godowns to 29 lakh tonnes in the next fiscal year to prevent food wastage and ensure food security.

"The storage capacity has been increased to 21.86 lakh tonnes and will further increase it to 29 lakh tonnes in the next fiscal year," he said yesterday while presenting a Tk797,000 crore national budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year in parliament. 

It is Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali's first budget and also the first for the new government.

The minister highlighted that the 8th Five-Year Plan includes a target to increase the government's food grain storage capacity to 37 lakh tonnes by 2025.  

In his speech, Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali announced the completion of the project titled "Construction of Godowns for Chattogram, Sylhet, and Rangpur regional offices to increase TCB's buffer stock capacity." 

This project aims to maintain the quality of perishable essential commodities, ensure the accumulation of emergency stocks, and enhance TCB's capacity to regulate the market.

"The Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) is maintaining emergency storage of essential goods. Efforts are ongoing to increase these storage capacities. The storage capacity of TCB's warehouses has now grown to approximately 27,000 tonnes from 9,570 tonnes in FY 2008-09," the minister said.

To address the ongoing global economic crisis, the Bangladesh Food Safety Authority is focusing on ensuring food security through intensive monitoring of the food supply chain, quality control of food, and promoting good nutrition practices.

Food-friendly programmes are providing 50 lakh low-income families with 30 kg of rice per month during the five months of the off-season each year to alleviate poverty and protect low-income people from inflation, he also said. 

Additionally, to stabilise the prices of essential goods, the government distributed 2 litres of soybean oil, 2 kg of lentils, 1 kg of sugar (subject to availability), and 5 kg of rice at Tk30 per among nearly 1 crore low-income families across Bangladesh kg through TCB's family cards.

The minister said to efficiently protect low-income people, smart family cards are being distributed in place of TCB's family cards. 

"This will enable verification of beneficiaries' information through the integration of their NID and mobile numbers. As of March 2024, over 30 lakh smart family cards have been distributed," he concluded.

Production of crops including rice, maize, potatoes, vegetables, and fruits is on the rise as a result of the agri-oriented policies of the government. In FY2008-09, the total production of food grains was 328.96 lakh tonnes. By FY2022-23, this increased by approximately 42% to 467.03 lakh tonnes. But, warehouses in the country under the food directorate can store 21.86 lakh tonnes.