The Ministry of Agriculture has opened a fertiliser management control room to monitor the supply, storage and distribution of fertiliser. Any report from the field of irregularity, an artificial shortage or sales above the fixed price will be acted on quickly. The work began on Thursday.

Agriculture secretary Md Selim Uddin Khan said the control room operates from room 528 of the ministry. Twenty-seven teams have been formed for it, each with an officer, an administrative officer and an office support staff member.

The control room runs from 11 to 24 September in two shifts — the first from 8am to 3pm and the second from 3pm to 10pm. Overall supervision rests with the additional secretary for fertiliser management and inputs.

One of its main duties is to collect and keep information on fertiliser supply, storage, transport and distribution from districts and upazilas across the country. Where information comes in about irregularities in transport, an artificial shortage, illegal storage, black marketing or sales above the fixed price, the relevant authority must be informed at once.

If a district or upazila looks at risk of a shortage, the control room will identify it as a priority and make the necessary recommendations. It has also been instructed to receive complaints from farmers, dealers and transporters and act on them quickly.

The day's fertiliser situation, the complaints received and the steps taken must be recorded in a register, and daily and weekly reports prepared from them. The control room has also been told to collect fertiliser-related reports from newspapers, television, online news outlets and social media and verify them through district, upazila and union-level contacts. Its contact number is 050351.

Source: Samakal (staff correspondent)