Food Minister Qamrul Islam has said the government is planning to bring its food supply and security system under strong monitoring.
The Minister this while speaking at the launching ceremony of Bangladesh Integrated Food Policy Research Programme under the food ministry at a city hotel on Tuesday.
He said the complete database of food management system and its beneficiaries will be prepared to prevent overlapping.
Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Food Ministry Abdul Wadud Dara, World Bank's Acting Country Director Rajashree S Paralkar, International Food Planning and Research Institute's (IFPRI-Washington) Director Paul Dorosh, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) Director General Khan Ahmed Sayeed Murshid, Director General (DG) of Food Badrul Hasan and Project Director of Modern Food Storage Facilities Project Gaziur Rahman also spoke at the programme with Food Secretary AM Badrudduja in the chair.
Mr. Qamrul said the activities of all government food warehouses and silos will be brought under an online system. As a result, the authorities concerned will be able to know about the stock of food grain from Dhaka.
He said modernisation of food storage facilities is underway to tackle all four aspects of food security like availability, access, utilization and stability under integrated food policy research programme.
Under the program, the government will construct eight silos at all divisional cities with financial support from the World Bank, Mr. Qamrul said.
"We are going to inaugurate five lakh household silos at different flood-prone and coastal areas within two months (January-February). Five lakh families of those areas will be able to preserve 30kg of food grain in each silo," the minister said.
He said Bangladesh is prone to natural disasters that can affect the country's supply of cereals if they are not properly stored. The government is committed to protect the poor with the use of modern engineering and information technology, he added.
IFPRI in collaboration with the Food Ministry, BIDS and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA organized the programme.
This Report was first published in the Daily Observer.