Rotten wheat bad luck for Qamrul Islam

The wheat supplied by the Directorate General of Food to the police department is found of very low quality. Police personnel have to take meal made of the worse wheat and atta after their daylong hard work. They are disheartened at this, and it may impact the law and order maintenance also.

The allegation was brought in a latest letter sent to the home ministry recently as several other letters were sent in this regard from the police headquarters. The home ministry also informed the food ministry of the matter accordingly.

Food director general in a letter to the food ministry on 21 June said the wheat imported from Brazil was at the margin of import conditions. In May, a consignemnt of wheat was sent back by the food deaprtment because of low quality.

Food minister Qamrul Islam, while talking to Prothom Alo on Sunday, ruled out the matter of receiving any letter from police. “We have not received any such letter from the police,” he said. The home ministry however sent more than one letters to the food ministry in last two months highlighting the police allegation about the wheat quality.

State minister for home affairs Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told Prothom Alo, “We have come to know the police members’ objection about the supplied wheat. Our ministry has informed the food ministry of the matter in written, and hope the ministry would take up the matter.”

The food ministry sources said that food director general Foyez Ahmed has decided not to supply the wheat to the police force, which was imported from Brazil, and was found below quality in a test by the government. The 1 Lakh and 20 thousand ton wheat have been allotted for various government programmes and projects in rural areas.

Asked whether the wheat has been given to the poor people of the rural areas because police’s refusal to accept it, the DG said the wheat is of low quality, but not inedible or rotten. There is no allegation from the government projects about the wheat.

In the letter, police authorities said the personnel’s mind would be strenghthened if they were allowed to choose better rice and wheat, which would help improve the law and order situation. Upgraded rice-wheat are not supplied to them ignoring food ministry’s supply order, it added.
In a previous letter, it was alleged that the rice and wheat grains are over-sized, stinky, and dirty and mixed with small glass pieces.

Besides the police force, around 33 thousand receivers, including war-wounded and martyred freedom fighters’ families, civil employees and officers of the directorate of the National Security and Intelligence, and the Special Security Force, and 4th and 5th grade employees of the Anti Corruption Commission draw the wheat from the Dhaka Metropolitan Police rations store.

Earlier, on May 13, a letter was sent from the home ministry to the food ministry secretary asking to supply better quality wheat for the police. The letter, signed by deputy secretary Nirod Chandra Mandal, said the wheat, collected from district food warehouses as rations for the police district/unit, is not so good. Some samples of low quality wheat also were sent to the food ministry.

After police allegation, the food director general clarified his stance about the wheat imported from Brazil in a letter sent to the food ministry on 21 June. He wrote, “Before I joined as the director general of the directorate, a total of 2,05,128 tonnes of wheat was bought from two Brazil organizations under four packages. The quality of the wheat was on margin of government’s acceptability.”

“After I joined as the director general, a wheat consignment was scheduled to be received. But the size, quality or colour was not seen acceptable, and so, it was refused. Local agent of the Glencore BV took back the wheat.”