TCB starts selling 6 essential goods to 1cr families from today

News Desk :
The state-run Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) has taken an initiative to sell six essential items to some one crore low-income group families ahead of holy month of Ramadan, a press release said.
As part of this, the TCB will start selling three essential items – edible oil, sugar, dates and chickpeas and lentils — among such families from today (March 9).
These essential items will be sold in two phases. In the first phase selling of the items will start from Thursday across the country, reports UNB.
Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi will inaugurate the sales of essential items formally through a function at Tejgaon in the capital on Thursday.
The card holders can buy the six goods at subsidised rates from the TCB’s specific sales points and dealers’ outlets.
A card holder can buy 2 litre soybean oil, 2 kg lentil, sugar, chickpea and 1 kg date at a time.
The card holders can buy sugar TK 60/per kg, date at Tk100, lentil at Tk 70, chickpea at Tk 50 and soybean oil at Tk 110 per litre.
In 2022’s Ramzan, the trading corporation sold sugar at Tk 55 a kg, lentils at Tk 65 a kg, soybean oil Tk 110 a litre and onion at Tk 30 a kg.
However, nothing has changed for the general consumers as they are still paying higher prices for sugar although a week has passed since the National Board of Revenue removed the import duty on both raw and refined forms of the sweetener.
Sugar is being sold at Tk 115-120 per kg in Dhaka’s kitchen markets today, according to TCB data.
Bangladesh requires 20 lakh tonnes of sugar every year and imports meet over 98 per cent of the demand for raw sugar, which mainly comes from Brazil and Argentina.