Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder said on Sunday(August 14, 2022) that the Food Department is going to start selling rice in the open market at Tk 15 per kg on September 1. The government estimates that around 4 crore low-income people will benefit from the program starting September 1.
According to the minister, the food friendly program will
cover 50 lakh families or 4 crore low income people across the country. Each
person can buy 5 kg of rice at a time.
While the program usually aims to provide nutritional
support to poor rural families during the harvest season, the minister said the
upcoming one will be conducted in district, municipality and city corporation
areas.
The local rice market has been spiking since May this year
though the prices of the food staple usually remain low during the April-May
Boro harvesting season, rice market this year showed no sign of calming down
anytime soon.
Per kilogram of coarse rice is now Tk54-55, which was at
Tk50-52 even a week ago. Besides, low rainfall during the ongoing Aman planting
season, surged transportation costs and market manipulations by unscrupulous
businessmen cloud domestic rice prices.
"We have adequate rice stocks. When 50 lakh families will get subsidized rice, certainly there will be a positive impact on the market," Sadhan Chandra Majumder told reporters at the Secretariat.
The food friendly programmes are usually launched for five
months a year – September to November and March to April. These are the
pre-harvest seasons.
The food minister said there are 2,013 food dealers across
the country to run the programme. They will get 2 tonnes of rice each per day
for the subsidized sale.
"The rice prices have been hiked more than the recent
rise in transport costs. The market shows manipulation signs. We are regularly
monitoring the market and will intensify it further," the minister added.
|Source: Online/TA
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