Boro farming bears the brunt

This has resulted in hampering irrigation in IRRI-Boro fields which will keep an adverse effect on paddy production, farmers said.

There are seven fuel depots in the northern region. In two fuel depots situated in Parbatipur and Rangpur, reserve of diesel exhausted completely since Monday. In other depots, the reserve went down alarmingly, dealer sources said.

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But officials of some fuel companies said the temporary situation arose due to transport problem. Padma, Meghna and Jamuna companies of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) are entrusted to supply fuel in the region.

Drought has been persisting in some districts of the region. Ground water is used at random for irrigation in fields. Diesel is being used excessively for this purpose.

A source in North Bengal Fuel Dealers and Oil Tanker Owners Association said, the demand for diesel in the region in the ongoing month is 60,000 metric tons (MT). As such the daily demand is 2,000 MT, the source said.

Baghabari, the largest fuel depot, has a capacity of 32, 174 MT of diesel. At present, its reserve is less than 7,000 MT, dealer sources said. In the rest four depots the reserve is altogether less than 7,000 MT, they said.

Dealers in seven districts of Dinajpur, Thakurgaon, Nilphamari, Kurigram Lalmonirhat, Rangpur (partly) and Gaibandha (partly) procured diesel from Parbotipur depot through rationing during the last couple of weeks. But reserve in the depot was exhausted since Monday.

Bappi Bhoumik, an influential fuel dealer in the district town, told this correspondent his two tank lorries returned from Parbotipur depot without diesel on Monday. The situation did not change till yesterday, he said.

Administration sources said the demand for diesel for operating irrigation pumps in the entire district is 1.12 lakh litres per day. But the actual demand for diesel is 56,000 litres per day as farmers do not operate all the pumps at a time.

Meanwhile, farmers of different villages alleged that the fuel pumps sell diesel to them in a small scale.

Abdus Sobahan, manager of Raja Filling Station in the town told the daily consumers demand is 1500 litres of diesel but they can supply only 1,000 litres.