The government will provide 30kg of rice to 50 lakh low-income households at Tk15 per kg in the upcoming fiscal year 2022-23 under the Food Assistance Programme (FAP) as the prices of rice are soaring.
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal made the announcement while he placed the budgetary proposal for the FY2022-23 in parliament on Thursday.
The government will continue with this programme in the FY2022-2023. During the lean season of September-October-November and March-April food assistance of 30kg of rice each month at Tk15 will be provided to 50 lakh low-income households, Kamal said in his budget speech.
“We are distributing five lakh MTs of rice and 5.09 lakh MTs of wheat flour in the current fiscal year 2021-2022,” he added.
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The food storage capacity is expected to rise to 25 lakh MTs by the end of fiscal year 2022-2023, he said.
Through OMS efforts the government is consistently providing rice and flour at subsidized prices with the goal of making food available to the low-income population. It is also helping contain the price spiral of rice.
Our aim is to distribute 33.13 lakh MTs during the same period. Simultaneously, the government is working to maintain buffer stock by expanding the food grain storage capacity at the government level, the budget speech added.
During the pandemic, the government provided 70, 56,000 families with the same facilities of 30kg of rice at Tk10 a kg under the Food Assistance Programme.
