The government starts selling key essential commodities at subsidised rates on June 02 aiming to keep prices and supplies stable during the holy month of Ramadan, officials have said.
The open market sale (OMS) of major essentials through dealers of the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) will continue until mid-Ramadan, they have said.
The state-owned agency TCB will sell the essential items in different parts of the country using 174 trucks. Of them, 25 will be used in Dhaka, 10 in Chittagong, five in each of the divisional cities and two in each of the 57 district towns.
According to the TCB, it will sell five types of commodities. They are sugar, soybean oil, lentil, gram and date.
“The sale of key essential items ahead of the fasting month will start on June 02 and it will continue until mid-Ramadan,” TCB Chairman Sarwar Jahan Talukdar told the FE on Saturday.
“We have already completed all necessary preparations to start the truck sale through our dealers across the country. We have sufficient stocks of some key essential items to keep supplies and prices stable before and during Ramadan,” he said.
Usually the demand for sugar, oil and gram rises during Ramadan. So, the truck sale would help drive down the demand, he mentioned.
Traders said they had sufficient stocks of essential items to meet the demand during the fasting month.
In a recent meeting they also assured the commerce minister that prices of key essential items would not go up before or during the holy month of Ramadan.
The country’s annual demand for edible oil is 1.45 million (14.5 lakh) tonnes. About 1.167 million tonnes of oil have already been imported, according to the ministry of commerce data.
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