Photo-collected.
Staff Reporter, Habiganj/

600 tonnes of urea purchased with an additional Tk 1 crore 20 lakh is lying in the warehouses of 12 tea gardens owned by the government in 3 districts of Sylhet division. Among them there are 7 gardens in Habiganj.

The responsible official of 12 tea gardens of 3 districts of Sylhet division of National Tea Company from 7 tea gardens of Habiganj, who did not want to be named, said that this urea fertilizer mixed with sand has been left in the warehouse without using it due to the fear of damaging the tea garden.

Although the matter has been reported to the concerned authorities, no one in charge of National Tea Company Limited is willing to talk about it.

According to the relevant tea garden sources, every year in June, government-owned National Tea Company (NTC) has 5 tea gardens in Habiganj. The gardens are – Parkul, Chandichara, Jagdishpur, Teliapara tea garden.

Moulvibazar has 7 tea gardens. The gardens are Prem Nagar, Vijaynagar, Champarai, Kurma, Madan Mohanpur, Patrakhola, Madhavpur tea gardens. Sylhet 1 tea garden is – Lakkatura Tea Garden.

In these 13 tea gardens, according to the demand, 646 tons of urea fertilizer, 231 tons of TSP, 339.50 tons of MOP and 74 tons of DAP are purchased from the contractor through tender and sent to the respective gardens by Dhaka Topkhana Road Head Office. However, because of many scandals in the quality of urea fertilizer supplied to 12 tea gardens in 3 districts of Sylhet division, sacks of urea fertilizer are lying in the warehouse of each tea garden.

According to the source, the price written on each bag of fertilizer supplied by the tea garden is averaged in the bill voucher. Voucher shows higher price. Besides, the quality of urea fertilizer is not good.

After knowing this fact, tea garden authorities did not use urea fertilizer in many tea gardens. After informing National Tea Company Limited (NTC) Dhaka head office about adulterated fertilizer and high price, tea company started investigating the matter very secretly.

NTC Managing Director Mohammad Mucha is said to be checking the quality of urea fertilizer supplied to government tea gardens.

A garden manager, who did not wish to be named, told this representative that some outstanding officials of the NTC company head office are involved in the urea fertilizer quality scam for their own financial gain.

Meanwhile, GM of NTC Syed Mahmud Hasan checked and told this representative that the quality of urea fertilizer is not good. He advised to talk to Golam Mohammad, member secretary of National Tea Company in this regard. Attempts were made to talk to the member secretary of NTC to talk about this but it was not possible to talk. NTC Managing Director Mohammad Mucha assured CNBangladesh of the authenticity of the inspection of each tea garden, but he refused to talk about urea fertiliser.