OMS rice sale at Tk 15 per kg from Sept 1

The government will start open market sale (OMS) of rice at Tk 15 per kg from September 1 for 40 million people, said Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder on Sunday.

“This programme will run simultaneously in districts, municipalities and city areas under the Food Friendly Program (FFP) of the government,” he said while talking to reporters at the Secretariat.

The Minister hoped that the price of rice in the market would come under control through this programme.

He said, ‘We have 2,013 dealers, each dealer will get two metric tonnes of rice per day.

The government’s passed to raise the price of subsidised rice distributed to the public by Tk 5 per kilogram to Tk 15 in the FY22 budget.

In addition, the budget allocation for the Open Market Sales (OMS) program has been proposed to be cut by 11.5 per cent in the new budget.

It has been proposed that Tk 1,720.13 crore be allocated to the OMS sector, which is a reduction of 11.5 per cent from the current fiscal year’s allocation of Tk 1,943.56 crore.

In his budget speech, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said “The government has sold rice at the rate of only Tk 10 per kg among 7.06 million low-income families,” he said.