One crore TCB cardholders to get rice at Tk30 per kg

Staff Reporter :
Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder on Sunday said that country’s one crore families, having the cards of Trading Corporation Bangladesh (TCB), will get 5kgs of rice at Tk 30 per kg from July 1 along with the products given under the similar package programme.
The decision was taken following an instruction of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to this effect.
This was disclosed while briefing media on the country’s present food grain stock, progress in internal Boro procurement drive of the Directorate General of Food (DG Food) and launching the programme of selling 5kgs of rice to all among the one crore TCB cards holders.

“Currently one crore families are getting TCB products. From July 1, they will get 5 kgs of rice at Tk 30 along with other items. The programme will continue round the year,” he informed, adding, “The open market sales (OMS) dealers will provide the rice.”
Sadhan Chandra Majumder said, “When the price of rice was slightly higher, we conducted the rice sale through 2,500 OMS dealers across the country and we also distributed additional 2 lakh metric tonnes of rice through OMS after taking approval from the Finance Ministry.”

Besides, we also provide rice to 50 lakh families regularly through conducting food-friendly programme (FFP) and they are getting 30 kgs of rice each month at only Tk15 per kg. During the coronavirus pandemic, the rice of FFP was sold at only Tk10 per kg.

He also informed that the government has procured 6,56,587 metric tonnes of rice and 1,15,272 metric tonnes of paddy till June 24 during the ongoing Boro procurement season.
He said the government had set a target to procure 12.5 lakh metric tonnes of rice and 4 lakh metric tonnes of paddy and the targets will be fulfilled this June.

Regarding country’s present food grain stock, the minister said that the stock was above 20 lakh tonnes before a week. By this week, some 1.51 lakh metric tonnes of rice were allocated for the government’s vulnerable group feeding (VGF) programme. As a result, the stock declined to 19.04 lakh tonnes. Of the stock, 14.83 lakh tonnes are rice, 3.18 lakh tonnes wheat and 1.03 lakh tonnes paddy.
He also informed that the anti-hoarding law will be passed in this session of the Jatiya Sangsad.