Bangladesh is set to have an increased reserve of food grains from this year on to avert food crisis during natural calamities, said a senior official of the Directorate of Food.
To this end, the government is going to build eight silos across the country under the "Modern Food Storage Facilities" project.
"The government will build six silos for rice and two for wheat. The eight silos will be built under three packages," said the official to state-owned BSS on Friday.
Under the package one, he said, they have already signed a deal with Toma Construction Limited to build three silos in Madhupur, Mymensingh and Ashuganj.
At present, the total storage capacity of government warehouses and silos is around 2.1 million metric tonnes.
The official said this capacity will increase to around 2.2 million metric tonnes (MT) within the current year, then to 2.7 million MT by 2020 and around 3 million MT by 2025.
He informed that a total 36 million metric tons of rice and around 2.6 million metric tonnes of wheat are produced in a year.
For storing the food grains, modern food storage needs to be increased, he added.
The official also said the steel silos will be built in collaboration with the World Bank.
Total cost of the project will be $240.42 million. Out of the total project cost, $210 million will come from International Development Association (IDA) grant, $25 million will come from Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund (BCCRF) grant, $5 million from beneficiary contribution and rest of the fund will come from government exchequer.
