Ministry holds meet on TCB today

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FE Report
The commerce ministry will hold a meeting today (Tuesday) to discuss the ways and means to strengthen the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) to help government curb the prices of the essentials.
"The meeting will mainly discuss about an option to procure essential commodities through the TCB before the holy Ramadan," Feroz Ahmed, commerce secretary, told the FE Monday.
Besides, the meeting will also discuss the problems relating to repeated failures of TCB to impress upon the bidders for supply of essential commodities over the last few months.
When asked about cancellation of a government plan to go for spot purchase of essential commodities through TCB, he said such a purchase was considered as not viable.
"Actually, we can not rely on the TCB as we can bank on the BDR," he further said.
Regarding price hike of rice during the last week in the city markets, commerce secretary said this might have been caused by supply disruption due to incessant rains over the last one week.
However, sources said the government downsized the TCB by reducing the number of officials and staffs to 235 from 714 in October 2002 as part of open market policy.
Moreover, about 32 of the allotted posts remained vacant over the last few years, they said.
Replying to a question, the commerce secretary said strengthening of the function of the TCB will also be discussed at the meeting.