Officials were told that fertiliser from government warehouses was being sold openly on the market and were asked to come and carry out a raid. Reporters, assured that officials were on their way, waited for hours. After four hours, no one had come.

As a result, it remains unknown whether the hundreds of sacks of government fertiliser found in the shops arrived there through proper allocation and with valid papers. The incident took place at Ferosadangi bazar in Mohammadpur union of Thakurgaon Sadar upazila.

Similar sacks of government fertiliser were later found in several shops at Nargun and Shibganj markets too. Officials were informed there as well, but no effective raid was carried out, so it is still not known how hundreds of sacks of government fertiliser reached the open market.

Farmers have no end of complaints. Some cannot get the fertiliser they need; some stand in line for hours and go home empty-handed; others say they are forced to buy on the open market above the government price.

Mohammadpur bazar showed the opposite picture: sacks of government fertiliser, which are supposed to go to dealers, were found in ordinary shops.

The questions are how fertiliser allocated for farmers reached market shops, which warehouse it came from, whose allocation it was, which dealer it went through, whether the shopkeepers hold valid delivery papers, and whether the stock has been checked against government records. Answering them required an immediate administrative raid and investigation.

Reporters stayed at the scene and asked officials to come, examine the fertiliser, check the papers and take legal action if there were irregularities. No visible action followed.

Informed from the scene, Thakurgaon Sadar upazila nirbahi officer Khairul Islam said: "I am telling the upazila agriculture officer, he will look into it."

Shortly afterwards the Sadar upazila agriculture officer, Nasirul Alam, was told. He said: "I am asking the sub-assistant officer of that union to go to the spot quickly. Please wait."

Reporters spoke several times to Nafisa Banu, the sub-assistant officer for Mohammadpur union, but she did not come. Later, calls to senior officials went unanswered.

Farmers allege that the fertiliser due to them is leaking to the open market by various routes and being sold there at higher prices, and that fertiliser is being given to large retail traders instead of farmers. Verifying these allegations requires an administrative investigation.

Farmer Abdul Jalil said that if official inaction emboldens wrongdoers, someone must take responsibility for it. Officials are supposed to account for every sack of government fertiliser: which dealer received how much after it left the warehouse, where it went and how much was sold. So why, he asked, is that account not checked when hundreds of sacks turn up in open-market shops?

Farmers and local civic groups say that if farmers do not get fertiliser, crop production will suffer, and food security will be threatened. If government fertiliser is found on the open market during a shortage and officials still do not come when told, they say, it becomes a question of government management, oversight and accountability.

According to the agriculture office, there should be no fertiliser shortage in the district: fertiliser has been allocated according to demand, and the shortage being talked about is an artificial one created by a syndicate.

Majedul Islam, deputy director of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) in the district, said the government is spending heavily on subsidies to keep farm output steady. It buys urea at Tk 75 a kg and gives it to farmers at Tk 27, and buys DAP at Tk 105 a kg and gives it at Tk 21. "But a syndicate is working to defeat this effort. With the fertiliser we have received, there should be no shortage," he said.

Thakurgaon deputy commissioner Mohammad Rafiqul Haque, who chairs the fertiliser and seed monitoring committee, said there is no fertiliser shortage and that strict legal action will be taken against anyone who creates one.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.