Contractors stop taking delivery of foodgrains from Ctg port

It caused a huge quantity of imported consumers' goods, including wheat, rice and sugar to get stuck in different ships and lighter vessels now berthing at jetties and outer anchorage of Chittagong port.

The suspension of delivery of such food grains created a grave concern among the importers while it is feared that it would leave a negative impact on the market.

A mobile court in separate drives seized around 100 tons of totally damaged wheat and rotten sugar preserved in godowns of shut down jute mills on Monday and Tuesday.

The court reportedly found the godowns, which were originally made for storing jute, infested with rats, insects and cockroaches and quite unfit for preserving food grains.

Meanwhile, though the drives are being lauded by Chittagong City Mayor ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury, it created resentment among the contractors and commission agents concerned.

When contacted the contractors and commission agents who rented the godowns of closed down jute and textile mills for storing food grains denied enforcement of any strike to suspend taking delivery of such goods.

"We are not on strike neither do we have any complaint or allegation against anybody," said M Rahman, vice-president of Chittagong Contractors and Commission Agents Association.

"As we do not have any godowns of such standard required by the mobile court, we are forced to stop taking delivery of food grains for lack of storage place," he defended.

"A lot of space is required to store the huge quantity of food grains imported here regularly," said Abdul Mannan, joint-secretary of the association.

"When most of the private godowns had storage space of some 20 thousand Sq-ft to 30 thousand Sq-ft, we were bound to rent the godowns with storage space measuring one lakh Sq-ft to two lakh Sq-ft," he argued.

The association leaders called for allowing them time for improving the condition of the godowns.