10m families to get TCB rice from Sunday

The government's rice distribution to 10-million households through the state-backed Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) will start across the country tomorrow (Sunday).
Every cardholding family will get 5.0 kilogram of rice at Tk 30 per kg from TCB outlets once in a month, along with products like pulses, sugar and edible oil.
TCB spokesperson Humayun Kabir said the open market sale (OMS) dealers would provide rice along with other subsidised products to 10-million households.
The food directorate will deliver rice to the TCB, he added.
He said people could normally buy sugar at Tk 70 a kg, pulses at Tk 70 a kg and soybean oil at Tk 100 a litre from the TCB.
Now, they can buy rice at a subsidised rate from its outlets, according to the official.
Meanwhile, the TCB has sent a letter to the directorate general of food (DGoF) in this connection.
The letter said the DGoF would provide rice as per demand placed by TCB dealers.
Dealers will take rice to their outlets and sell the staple to the cardholders.
The distributed amount will be added to the July allocation by the DGoF.
The TCB will prepare a rice allocation letter and send it to the offices of all divisional commissioners, deputy commissioners and district food controllers/upazila food controllers.
The dealers will source and distribute all the products and sell them at fixed prices and get commission as per government rates.
The DGoF provides rice to 5.0-million families 30 kg of rice per month under a government food distribution programme.
Public warehouses have 1.6-million tonnes of rice for now while 0.9-million tonnes could be purchased for domestic sources in the ongoing Boro crop procurement period (April-August), said DGoF officials.
The government has also a target to import 0.5-million tonnes of rice this fiscal year (FY24) as it brought in nearly 0.66-million tonnes in the just ended FY.
According to TCB and city groceries, prices of non-branded parboiled rice have remained almost static for the last two months in the country.
Coarse rice was selling at Tk 50-55, medium at Tk 60-65 and finer at Tk 65-92 a kg in Dhaka city during the period in question.

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