Govt to buy 1.10cr litres soybean oil for TCB’s OMS

Staff Reporter :
The government will procure 1.10 crore litres of soybean oil and 8,000 tonnes of lentil from private suppliers to sell through Open Market Sale programme under the state owned Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB).
The Cabinet Committee on Government Purchase approved two separate proposals in this regard in a virtual meeting of the committee, presided over by Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on Thursday.
Cabinet Division Additional Secretary Sayeed Mahbub Khan briefed the media after the meeting and said that the government will procure the soybean oil at the cost of Tk 182 per litre and the total cost will stand at Tk 200.20 crore.
According to the proposals, placed by the Commerce Ministry on behalf of its subordinate body, the TCB will import 1.10 crore litres of soybean oil at a cost of Tk 200.20 crore with per litre at Tk 182 while 8,000 tonnes of lentil will be procured from ETC Agro Processing Pvt. Ltd, India (Local Agent: Export Trading BD Ltd, Dhaka) at a cost of Tk 73.96 crore.
The meeting also approved four separate proposals including the soybean oil and lentil procurement at a total cost of Tk 1,179 crore, he said.
Of the total Tk 1,179 crore, Tk 223.62 crore will come from the government fund while the country’s development partner ADB will provide the rest Tk 9,55.54 crore as loan.
The government is going to procure soybean oil and lentils to shoulder the burden of the country’s poor people amid the huge inflationary pressure, said the government official.
Meanwhile, the government on January 10 began selling lentils, edible oil and sugar to one crore low and middle-income groups at a subsidised rate once a month across the country to shoulder their hardship amid the global volatile economic condition.
Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi formally inaugurated the TCB sale in the city’s Agargaon area on that day.
Soybean oil at Tk 110 per litre, sugar at Tk 60 per kilogram and lentils at Tk 70 per kilogram were being sold among the people through the TCB.
Each family cardholder can buy a maximum of two litres of soybean oil, two kilograms of lentils and a maximum of one kilogram of sugar.
Tipu Munshi said the government spent Tk 5,200 crore as a subsidy for the TCB products in the last year.
Now people are being given two litres of soybean oil, two kilograms of lentils and one kilogram of sugar under a package of Tk 420, said the Commerce Minister.
However, a proposal of the Roads and Highways Department received the nod of the committee to award a contract for construction of Lot No. DS-3 of the WP-02 Package of the ‘Sasek Dhaka-Sylhet Corridor Road Development’ project the Joint Venture of (1) HEGO, China; (2) Approved purchase from Mir Akhter, Bangladesh at Tk 155.20 crore, Sayeed Mahbub Khan said.
The committee approved a proposal of the Public Works Department to award a contract for electrical work of the project: ‘Construction of 9 Residential Tower Buildings for Policemen in Dhaka Metropolitan Area’ to Noorani Construction Ltd at Tk 23.20 crore.
The committee gave nod to proposal of the Bangladesh Civil Aviation Authority for its project “Construction of General Aviation Hangar, Hangar Apron and Apron on North Side of Fire Station at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport” for extension at cost of Tk 26.79 crore.
The Joint Venture of (1) BUCG; (2) NDE and (3) AERONESS, Bangladesh has been implementing the project as its contractor.