Budgetary allocations for agri warehouse projects sow confusion
Although the government has allocated billions of rupees from national budgets since 2016 to build warehouses with the aim of improving storage facilities for agri produce, tender malpractices have stalled the construction of most of those store complexes, rural farmer organisations complained.
A leading engineering and construction company which was selected to build several such are houses after calling for tenders is still to start or complete some of these projects after taking over the task a couple of years back, a spokesman of these farmer organisations, alleged.
Bids of several private sector construction companies for these projects have been rejected by the technical evaluation committee intentionally paving the way for this leading construction firm to grab the tenders, he said.
Rs. 1000 million has been allocated from the 2016 Budget to set up storage facilities across the country including Ratnapura and Mannar for crops to remove negative impacts of the involvement of middlemen.
In 2017 Budget a sum of Rs. 600 million was set apart to build agri warehouses in Ampara, Kilinochchi, Mannar and Embilipitiya.
Allocation of Rs.250 million has been made in the 2018 Budget to complete the construction of three warehouses for storage of agricultural produce in Polonnaruwa, Ratnapura and Kilinochchi.
According to Finance Ministry sources all of these programmes were targeted for expansion through the 2019 budget.
Construction of three warehouses has been initiated in the districts of Anuradhapura, Monaragala and Mannar and these warehouses were completed with a total storage capacity of 24,000 tonnes, a Ministry official said.
The Government should reveal the progress of those projects as it has allocated a large sum of money for the same projects in successive budgets since 2016.
Ministry sources said that the Ratnapura warehouse has been completed. Similarly the construction of two warehouses constructed in Kilinochchi and Polonnaruwa will be finished soon.
Tenders have awarded to the leading construction firm to build warehouses in Ampara and Polonnaruwa Districts, but the construction work had been stalled, rural farmer organisations alleged claiming that they can prove the allegation with documentary evidence.
The Government, with the assistance of the World Bank, has introduced a state- of-the-art technology with an innovative mechanism to assist with farmer production in the selected agricultural districts by providing them with quality storage facilities to store their produce such as paddy, maize, soybean, sesame, black gram, pepper and peanut during harvesting period.
Poor storage and wastage results in significant loss of agricultural productivity and erodes farmer incomes. The government will invest in the hard infrastructure to set up climate-controlled warehouses, which the private sector will be invited to manage and operate, the Ministry sources revealed.
100 per cent private investment in such operations is also encouraged by removing upfront costs of such investments, the sources said.