The Ministry of Agriculture has decided to retain almost all the existing fertiliser dealers appointed under the previous governments despite Prime Minister Tarique Rahman's pledge in parliament to revoke the appointments and introduce a fresh recruitment process.
Instead of replacing and reviewing the existing dealers, the ministry has opted to appoint dealers only in vacant units, allowing all current licence holders to continue operating, says an official.
The decision, communicated through a recent directive issued by the Fertiliser Management and Monitoring Division of the ministry, has triggered fresh questions over whether the ministry has backtracked on commitments made in parliament.
According to Sunday's directive signed by Joint Secretary Dr Mohammad Jahangir Alam, district administrations have been instructed to issue fresh recruitment notices only for vacant fertiliser dealer units under the Integrated Policy on Fertiliser Dealer Appointment and Distribution 2025.
The circular also states that applicants who previously applied for dealerships in response to earlier recruitment notices would not have to submit fresh applications. Their pending applications will be considered under the new recruitment process.
However, the recruitment exercise is confined to filling vacant dealer units, leaving the existing dealers unaffected.
An official at the Ministry of Agriculture says former agriculture secretary Dr Mohammad Emdad Ullah Mian played a key role in retaining the existing fertiliser dealers.
The official alleges that many dealers and their family members hold multiple dealerships.
"More than 60 per cent of the original dealers are no longer alive, but their second and third generations continue to enjoy the licences, as if those were hereditary property," he says.
According to him, for reasons that remain unclear, the then secretary and an influential syndicate decided to retain the old dealers while cancelling only some of the additional dealerships held by the same families.
"For example, if a family owned three or four dealerships, the administration under Dr Mian cancelled only one or two of them, allowing the rest to remain."
Ministry officials say hardly any new applicants were granted fertiliser dealerships during the tenure of the interim government.
The move appears to contradict the government's earlier political commitment made during a heated parliamentary debate on April 22.
On that day, both government and opposition lawmakers demanded the cancellation of fertiliser dealerships granted during the previous administrations, alleging widespread political patronage and irregularities in the appointment process.
The issue first came to the fore when Chief Whip Md Nurul Islam Moni drew the prime minister's attention to what he described as the continued dominance of dealers appointed during the previous governments.
He alleged that many of those dealers had deliberately refrained from lifting fertiliser, creating an artificial shortage in the market and disrupting supply to farmers.
Calling for immediate intervention, he urged the government to cancel the existing dealerships and appoint new dealers through a transparent process.
His proposal received overwhelming support from lawmakers across party lines, with members thumping their desks in approval. Responding to the debate, the prime minister assured parliament the government would take a firm stance against irregularities in fertiliser distribution.
He said the administration was committed to keeping the agriculture sector free from corruption.
Noting parliament's unanimous position, he also pledged the government would revoke the appointments made during the previous administration and appoint new fertiliser dealers without delay.
The issue was subsequently raised through an urgent public importance notice by ruling party lawmaker Mohammad Aktaruzzaman.
In his notice, the Mymensingh-10 lawmaker alleged that fertiliser dealerships across the country had been distributed on political considerations during the previous governments.
He also claimed that many of those dealers had gone into hiding, arguing that appointing new dealers was essential to ensure uninterrupted fertiliser supply and increase agricultural production.
When contacted, Agriculture Secretary Dr Rafiqul I Mohamed said the review was an ongoing process and newer, qualified candidates would be given opportunities for dealerships in vacant posts.
He acknowledged that many of the existing dealers would remain for now, but noted that they would also be brought under review as the process continued.
Farm economist and value chain expert Prof Golam Hafeez Kennedy says the ministry's latest administrative decision does not provide for a blanket review or cancellation of the existing dealerships.
Instead, it maintains the status quo by retaining all current dealers while recruiting only for vacant positions, he says.
He says the latest directive effectively validates the licences of thousands of existing dealers appointed under previous administrations, many of whom have been operating for decades.
The development is likely to fuel debate over the consistency between the government's policy commitments and administrative actions, particularly after parliament reached a rare bipartisan consensus in favour of overhauling the fertiliser dealership system, the professor notes. He says fertiliser distribution remains a critical component of Bangladesh's agricultural supply chain, with dealers serving as the primary channel for supplying subsidised fertilisers to millions of farmers.
So, a time-befitting dealership policy is unavoidable following fertiliser availability, market discipline, and crop production nationwide, he adds.
The country currently has 5,800 Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation-listed dealers and 5,200 BADC-listed dealers with roughly 45,000 fertiliser retailers.
Bangladesh uses 6.5 to 7.0 million tonnes of fertiliser for farming annually.
