Staff Reporter:
Potato farmers and traders in Rangpur on Thursday blocked the Rangpur-Kurigram regional highway in front of Apu Munshi Cold Storage at Nabiganj, cold demanding storage operators to reduce fees to the government-fixed rate.
They also demanded the removal and arrest of Mustafa Azad Chowdhury Babu, president of the Bangladesh Cold Storage Association, accusing him of charging excessive storage fees. The blockade disrupted road communication between Rangpur and Kurigram and Lalmonirhat for about an hour, leaving a large number of vehicles stranded on both sides of the highway.
Mohammad Sajidul Islam of Rajpur Union in Lalmonirhat, who joined the protest, said farmers were facing heavy production and storage costs. “It costs Tk22-Tk23 per kg to bring potatoes into storage, including labour, water, fertiliser and other expenses. Now cold storage operators are charging Tk7-Tk7.50 per kg as storage fees. This brings the total cost to around Tk30 per kg, while we are selling potatoes for Tk14 per kg. How will farmers survive?” he said.
Rangpur Potato Farmers and Traders Movement Committee member secretary Mobarak Hossain Mansur said a government committee formed through the deputy commissioners’ offices had surveyed 350 cold storages in 25 districts and fixed the average maximum storage fee at Tk5.20 per kg. “But cold storage owners are charging Tk7.25 per kg. This is a syndicate of cold storage owners, with some officials of the agricultural marketing department allegedly involved,” he said.
Touhidul Islam, convener of the committee, said around seven million tonnes of potatoes were stored in Rangpur. He alleged that Babu was charging Tk7-Tk7.50 per kg instead of Tk3-Tk4 and claimed that farmers in the region were losing around Tk2,500 crore annually due to excessive storage fees. According to farmers and traders, the government recently determined potato storage fees based on local operating costs and a fixed profit margin. The average fee was set at Tk5.20 per kg.
They said although representatives of the relevant stakeholders in Rangpur signed the committee’s recommendations, the cold storage association did not. Instead, cold storage operators fixed fees ranging from Tk7 to Tk7.30 per kg.
