Dhaka – The government is going to automate the food procurement system to make it sure that farmers get the officially fixed price, eliminating the ‘middlemen’, official sources said. -UNB
They also said the official piloting of the online food procurement system will be launched at Sherpur and Natore soon.
A high-profile team of Agriculture Ministry and Food Directorate will make a field visit to Sherpur’s Nalitabari on July 9 ahead of piloting of the digital food procurement system.
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 digitise the food procurement system.
The application contains various provisions, including online fixation of target of procurement of food for each upazila and making online registration and application by the farmers and expression of interest (EoI) by the millers as well as providing SMS notifications to the farmers and millers to sell their produces.
Contacted, BCC Executive Director Swapan Kumar Sarker said the digitisation of food procurement system will stop the interference of middlemen who allegedly deprived the farmers of availing of the actual price fixed by the government.
He said the farmers will get the fair prices fixed by the government as they will be able to sell food grains directly to the government approved agents.
Tarique M Barkatullah, Deputy Project Director of LICT Project who is overseeing the introduction of National Enterprise Architecture (NEA), said the automation of food procurement is part of introducing an Enterprise Architecture (EA) 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 digitisation of food procurement system, he said.
The government purchases nearly 15 lakh metric tonnes of food –8 lakh mt rice and 7 lakh mt 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 EA driven IT roadmap for the government organisations to develop applications as per functions.
