Santahar, Bogra: Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated on Sunday the country's first solar-powered food warehouse with a capacity of 25,000 tonnes of grain at Santahar in Bogra, the northern part of the country.

The modernised, multi-storey warehouse was built with financial and technical support from Japan.

Department of Food has constructed the air-conditioned warehouse at a cost of around Tk 232.71 crore with the financial and technical support from Japan. It will preserve food grain through using solar power round the year.

Inside air coolers and other machineries are very much modern and powerful having capacity of keeping the food grains in controlled temperature and moisture for long. There is no chance of damaging any food grain and its quality.

Local technicians have executed other need-based construction works like railway track, internal roads and necessary power system.

Sheikh Hasina said the government has been working relentlessly for expansion of food stock. It is expected that the country would be able to build up 100 percent food storage capacity by 2021.

The newly built Santahar, Bogra warehouse will help enormously in storing government food in Rajshahi region.

Food Minister Advocate Qamrul Islam, Land Minister Shamsur Rahman Sharif, local parliament members and political leaders were present.

The premier also planted a sapling of mango in the silo premises and visited different sections of the multistoried food warehouse.

Food silos are crucial for natural disaster-prone Bangladesh to keep stocks safe from water and other threats.

The world's fourth-biggest producer of rice, Bangladesh uses almost all of its production to feed its population of 160 million, and often needs imports to cope with shortages caused by natural calamities such as floods or droughts.

Bangladesh imports around 4.5 million tonnes of wheat a year to meet growing demand, while the country's output has stagnated at about 1 million tonnes.