The government is all set to purchase 3.0 million litres of soybean oil to sell it under the open market sale (OMS) programme to the consumers at an affordable price, officials said.
The Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) has already selected a local supplier through tender to purchase the edible oil.
Board of directors of the TCB has given necessary recommendations to purchase the essential.
The agency has recently sought required approval from its parent authority commerce ministry.
It has taken the move as part of its purchase plan approved by the ministry. It sells soybean oil through its OMS drive at a subsidised rate.
"We are now working regarding the issue. We hope that we will be able to give necessary approval as soon possible in favour of the entity," a high official of the ministry said.
At the beginning of the current calendar year, the ministry planned to purchase around 0.121 million tonnes of different key essential items for its OMS programme run by the TCB.
Of the total volume, 50,000 tonnes of edible oil, 30,000 tonnes of onion and 30,000 tonnes of sugar, 3,000 tonnes of lentil, 8,000 tonnes of gram and 500 tonnes of date will be bought from local and international markets, according to the commerce ministry.
When contacted, a senior official of the commerce ministry said, "We have taken initiatives to ensure adequate supply of different key essential items and keep their prices stable in the market."
The official also said, "The market monitoring teams have been reinforced. We've asked them to be more careful about their duties throughout the year."
TCB has been operating its OMS selling essential items at subsidised rates across the country since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country.
Under the OMS, it sells soybean oil, sugar and lentil, and onion as well occasionally.
The number of beneficiaries of the OMS programme has risen significantly as the pandemic forced people of the low-income group to buy commodities at subsidised prices.
According to the commerce ministry, nearly 60 million people have benefited from the OMS while the number of beneficiaries has been hovering around 30 million for the last couple of years.
As many as 25 million families are being benefited from the popular OMS programme as of April 2020.
The OMS programme helps keep the prices of key essential items stable in the market and offset the living cost of lower-income people, according a document of the ministry.
The state agency sells key commodities with a view to keeping their prices within the purchasing capacity of the commoners.
The OMS programme is especially run to stabilise the prices and keep market manipulators at bay.
Some 59.4 million people benefited in the fiscal year (FY) 2019-20 from 37,106 TCB trucks and general allocations to the TCB-listed dealers concerned.
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