NN Online:
Adviser to the interim government on the Ministries of Labour and Employment Asif Mahmud Shojib Bhuiyan on Thursday said the government would take tougher action to break syndicate aimed at keeping the commodities price stable.
He said the government was considering launching an agriculture market to prevent dominance of the syndicate in the commodity markets.
Asif, also the adviser on the Ministry of Youth and Sports, made the remarks while inaugurating the operations of truck sale by the state-run Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) at Dakshin Begunbari (Dipikar Mor), Tejgaon Industrial Area in the capital on Thursday.
Noting that prices of commodities increase due to the syndicate and middlemen, he said that the government had been working in all possible means by giving priority to breaking the syndicate in the long-term.
“From big cities to the local level, the government task force has been working to this end,” he added.
Mentioning that it is crucial to reduce the dominance of the middlemen from producers or farmers to consumer level, the adviser said the government would extend all sorts of cooperation to those private enterprises, who are doing social business by reaching commodities to the consumers from the entrepreneurs, said a press release.
He said the government is also considering launching an alternate agriculture market as part of its long-term plan to stop the price hike of commodities where the farmers could reach their products to the markets.
The TCB on Thursday started selling commodities including rice at subsidised prices through truck sale among the common consumers in Dhaka and Chattogram.
Under such an initiative, essential items like edible oil, lentil alongside rice provided by the Directorate General of Food are being sold among general consumers at the subsidised rates through 50 trucks in Dhaka metropolis and 20 trucks in Chattogram metropolis while such operations will continue until November 30, 2024.
Such operations of the TCB could be extended until the inflationary situation comes to a tolerable level.
Under this move, each consumer can buy a maximum 2 liters of edible oil at Tk 100 per litre, 2 kgs of lentil at Tk 60 per kg and 5 kgs of rice at Tk 30 per kg.
TCB has been continuing the operation for selling essential items like edible oil and lentil at subsidised prices among some one crore family card holder low-income group people under the directives of the ministry of commerce.