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The government has never set the minimum price of jute though the country’s jute law and jute policy mandate it to set the price.
So far this year, the jute and textiles ministry has not taken any move to set the price to ensure fair price of the golden fibre although the jute cultivation season of this year has already begun.
According to the Jute Act-2017, the government through official gazette can set the minimum and maximum prices of various categories of jute and jute products.
No individual could sell and buy jute and jute products at prices lower or higher than the government-set prices, it said.
The jute policy also said that the minimum price for jute would be declared at the beginning of the cultivation season after consultation with the stakeholders.
Neighbouring India also announces the minimum support price of jute.
This year the price of jute has started falling sharply from the beginning of the season early this month after the government shut down 22 public-sector jute mills on July 1.
Newly harvested jute will hit the market in full swing by the end of this month.
The price of 40 kilograms of jute was Tk 2,200-2,400 in late June but the price fell to Tk 1,700-1,900 in early July, farmers and traders said.
The buying price the state-owned jute mills under the Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation would offer usually acted as the benchmark of jute price although the farmers would hardly get the price benefit as the BJMC would often announce the price when the farmers had no stock of the golden fibre.
Traders who supplied jute to the state-run mills after purchasing it from the farmers would get the benefit.
In this context, jute farmers demanded the government set the minimum price of jute at Tk 3,000 a mound to ensure fair price for the farmers.
Otherwise, the farmers would severely be affected against the backdrop of shutting down of the state-run jute mills, they said.
Bangladesh Jute Growers Association president Md Fazlul Hoque Sarker on Tuesday told New Age that the provision over setting the minimum jute prices was only on paper, not in practice.
‘In all the meetings of the advisory committee and the other jute-related committees of the ministry, we demanded setting up the minimum price of jute keeping the production cost in mind but the ministry never set it,’ he said.
He said that the farmers could not sell jute directly to the mills and this year they would further be affected due to the closure of mills.
Bangladesh Krishak Sangram Samity has been demanding that the government set the price of a mound of jute at Tk 3,000.
The samity on Wednesday submitted a memorandum to the deputy commissioners across the country to announce the minimum jute price and cancel the decision of closure of the state-run jute mills.
BKSS general secretary Shahjahan Kabir told New Age that jute farmers would not get fair price if the price was not set at Tk 3,000 a mound due to a higher production cost this year.
A farmer has to spend Tk 1,800 to Tk 2,200 to cultivate jute on a bigha of land, he said.
‘The government should declare the minimum price now as the season of jute cultivation has begun,’ he said.
Farmers across the country cultivate jute on 14.75 lakh acres of land and the annual production of jute stands at 15.60 lakh tonnes, he said.
The government should retreat from its decision of closing the jute mills rather the mills can be made profitable through modernisation and stopping top officials’ corruptions and mismanagement, he said.
Jute ministry officials said that so far they had no plan to announce the minimum price of jute.
The ministry will take step if the Department of Jute, an office under the ministry, puts forward any proposal in this regard, they said.
DoJ director general Sowdagar Mustafizur Rahman told New Age that they would take step if the ministry issued any instruction to the department in this regard.
Replying to a question, jute secretary Lokman Hossain Miah said that the ministry would announce formally its decision, if there was any, in this regard.
He declined to make any further comment on the issue.
