As the number of enthusiastic farmers has become more, Saghata upazila administration conducted a lottery to select the names of the farmers at the auditorium of the upazila parishad on Wednesday in presence of all. Office sources said the government has taken up an initiative to purchase a total of 7446 metric tonnes of Aman paddy from the district during the Aman season under the activity of Aman paddy Procurement Drive Of the total, some 748 tonnes of paddy would be procured from the farmers of Saghata upazila in the district and each farmer would be allowed to sell one ton of paddy to the department. Upazila chairman Zahangir Kabir attended the function as the chief guest while UNO Sarder Mostafa Shahin presided over the ceremony. Upazila controller of food Abdur Rashid Sarker, officer in charge of local supply depot Ziaur Rahman, upazila agriculture extension officer Razia Tarafder, general secretary of upazila Jubo League Nasirul Islam Swapon and political leaders, farmers were also present during the lottery. Later, the chairman along with the officials announced the names of the selected farmers who would could sell a ton of Aman paddy each to the food department. District controller of food Antara Mallick told the BSS the initiative to purchase paddy from the farmers directly has been adopted to help the farmers get fair price against their crop. The officials of food department would procure the paddy from the farmers directly through 11 purchasing centers of seven upazilas in the district and the price of per kg Paddy has been fixed at TK 27, she concluded.
