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Food warehouse projects going slow

Sohel Parvez
A government initiative to raise the country's foodgrain storage capacity is going slow due to procedural delays and a spike in prices of construction materials for making warehouses.
So far, the government has completed one project out of four and increased such capacity by 1.10 lakh tonnes to 15.20 lakh tonnes.
The four projects, undertaken in the last three years to add such storage capacity by four lakh tonnes, were meant for enabling the government to buy more foodgrains during a production glut and release more during a price hike.
The implementation of the rest of the projects that will increase storage capacity by 2.69 lakh tonnes has been sluggish, said food ministry officials.
"We faced delays in the tendering process initially. But recently, many contractors have slowed construction works due to spiralling costs of building materials," said Iqramul Haque, who heads a project for constructing 91 new warehouses at Halishahar in Chittagong.
The project in Halishahar, involving Tk 218 crore, was undertaken in 2010 to build 91 new warehouses having 84,000 tonnes of foodgrain storage capacity.
The scheme, listed under the Annual Development Programme of the government, was scheduled to be complete within June this year.
Construction of some of the godowns is in the process of completion. But to accomplish the task completely, one more year will be required, he said.
"We have requested the planning ministry for time extension," said Haque.
Head of another project for building a
silo of 50,000 tonnes capacity at Mongla Port has also requested for extension of deadline by sixmonths to June 2014.
Md Gazi Ur Rahman, head of the Mongla silo project, said they are yet to complete the bidding process.
He said, so far three biddings were floated seeking technical and financial proposals.
The first two biddings ended in vain in absence of adequate responsive bidders with only four financial offers coming in the third one.
"As local firms do not have the experience to build silos, we have sought proposals from firms that will accomplish the task in partnership with experienced foreign companies," he said.
“Besides this, we have completed some other tasks including land acquisition and construction of dikes and approach roads," said Rahman.
However, Syed Nazmul Huda, head of another project to build 170 new warehouses with a total of 1.35 lakh tonnes of storage capacity, hoped to complete the task within the deadline on June 30 next year.
Huda, head of the Tk 283 crore pro j ect, said they would be able to hand over godowns of32,000 tonnes capacity to the government by June this year.
"We have already handed over godowns that have 3,000 tonnes of storage capacity, said Huda.
In his budget speech for fiscal 2009-10, Finance Minister AMA Muhith had pledged to enhance public foodgrain storage capacity by four lakh tonnes to give price support to farmers and consumers. The move was taken to buy more during a production glut and release more in the market during unusual price hike.