Amidst an unabated rise in the prices of rice, the government will start the open market sale (OMS) of the main staple in three more city corporations, in addition to Dhaka, from tomorrow (Sunday) to give some relief to poor and low-income people.
Poor people, who have been hit-hard by the economic slowdown in the recent months due to the Covid pandemic, will be able to buy rice at Tk 30 a kilogramme (Kg).
The OMS outlets will now be available in the cities of Chattogram, Narayanganj and Gazipur, said officials.
The prices of rice have been rising in the recent months. Even during the ongoing peak Aman harvesting season could not reverse the uptrend. Coarse and medium varieties of rice were being sold at prices between Tk 46 and Tk.56 a kg in Dhaka.
According to the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB), the current market price of rice is the second highest since September 2017.
The directorate general of food will sell rice from more than 184 points in the four corporations, said an official at the directorate.
Apart from rice, he said, people could also buy wheat flour at Tk 18 a kg.
The OMS of rice and flour in Dhaka is already on. The directorate will add the three city corporations to its OMS programme from Sunday.
The official said four new OMS outlets have been started in the Dhaka city's garment hubs, including Malibagh, Sabujbagh, Khilgaon and Kalshi.
Food secretary Dr Mosammat Nazmanara Khanum told the FE that they are selecting the outlets in areas concentration of labourers is more.
"Normally, each OMS outlet gets one tonne of rice and one tonne of flour per day. But we will now provide grains depending on demand in labour-intensive regions."
"Following the harvesting season and procurement," Ms Khanum said, "we've stopped district-level rice OMS."
"We're thinking of restarting rice OMS at district level from next month, depending on the necessity."
The secretary said, "The ministry is now eyeing rice import and the volume would depend on demand."
The government has already secured 0.1-million tonnes of rice import from two Indian companies.
Another two tenders for importing 0.1-million tonnes of rice have been floated recently, Ms Khanum disclosed.
When asked, she said import duty on rice might not be reviewed for the private sector until the end of the next Boro harvest with a view to helping the local farmers get fair price for their produce.
Rice import duty is now more than 62 per cent.
The private sector has so far imported a paltry quantity---less than 1,000 tonnes--- of rice during the current fiscal year, according to food ministry.
Above 95 per cent of Aman harvest has already been completed in an area of 5.89-million hectares of land, said the monitoring and evaluation unit of the department of agricultural marketing (DAE).
The government has a target to procure 15.5-million tonnes of Aman rice, according to the DAE.
Public food storages have now only 0.55-million tonnes of rice stock which were 0.9-million tonnes during the same period of last year, food directorate data shows.
Coarse rice prices are now 42-53 per cent higher than that of a year ago, according to the TCB.
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