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Online rice purchase begins in 16 districts


Published : 20 Nov 2019 08:42 PM | Updated : 07 Sep 2020 09:01 PM

The government, for the first time, has started purchasing of rice and paddy in a digital process through online. The initiatives have been taken to ensure officially fixed price for growers and eliminate middlemen as well. As part of a pilot programme, online purchase of rice began in 16 districts from Wednesday. After completion of the pilot project, the online food procurement process is expected to be introduced across the country during the upcoming Boro season, officials said.

A high-profile team of ICT Division, Agriculture Ministry and Food Directorate will remain vigilant to monitor the process. The World Bank-financed Leveraging ICT for Growth, Employment and Governance (LICT) Project of Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) under the ICT Division with the technical support of UK-based Ernst and Young (EY) has developed software-based application to digitalise the food procurement system.

The application contains various provisions, including online fixation of food procurement target of each upazila and making online registration and application by the farmers as well as providing SMS notifications to the farmers to sell their produces. BCC Executive Director Partha Pratim Deb said the digitalisation of food procurement process would stop interference of middlemen, who always deprive the farmers of availing the actual price fixed by the government.

He said the online food procurement system has been introduced so that farmers get the fair prices fixed by the government. They will be able to sell food grains directly to the government approved agents. Tarique M Barkatullah, who was Deputy Project Director of LICT Project, said the automation of food procurement is a part of introducing Bangladesh National Digital Architecture (BNDA) driven IT Roadmap.

The LICT Project and Directorate of Food are working together to collect information and data for updating a software-based application for digitalisation of food procurement system, he said. The government usually purchases nearly 15 lakh tones of food--8 lakh tones of rice and 7 lakh tones of paddy--from farmers during the Boro season each year.

“The automation will bring transparency in procuring the food grains and help the farmers get actual price fixed by the government each year,” Tarique said. He said the LICT Project is making the BNDA driven IT roadmap for the government organisations to develop applications as per functions.