Govt limits sale

The government has decided to scale down nationwide open market sale of rice amidst reports of illegal sale of the subsidised rice and asked all departments concerned to guard against recurrence of such pilferage of grains under the public food distribution system (PFDS).
Besides, dealership of 60 people was cancelled, while a number of food officials responsible for being lax in monitoring would be taken into task departmentally, Food and Disaster Management Minister Abdur Razzaque told The Daily Star yesterday.
"We've already asked to cut the supply of OMS rice from three tonnes to one tonne to each dealer in the haor belt where farmers started harvesting boro rice. Besides, we would scale down the OMS operation across the country in May as boro rice starts reaching the market," said Abdur Razzaque.
He explained that as the price of rice volatility has stabilised in the domestic market in recent weeks and demand for low-priced OMS rice subsided, a section of unscrupulous people took advantage of the price gap of OMS rice and that on retail market by illegally selling it to the traders.
However, it was found out that all the illegally sold out rice, seized by law enforcers from Dhaka and some other districts in last one month, did not belong to the OMS operation. Rather a substantial part of the rice reaching the retail markets was originally distributed as ration for law enforcers and paramilitary force, the minister added.
Food ministry officials confirmed that in an OMS stocktaking review meeting on Thursday, it was decided to alert other government departments dealing with such ration operations against such pilferage and misuse.
Law enforcers seized over 6,000 sacks of rice, meant for subsidised sale under PFDS, from Dhaka, Gazipur, Rangpur and a few other districts in last one week. A Food Department probe body headed by its Director (Procurement) Badrul Hasan submitted a report on Thursday showing that the seized sacks contained rice not only from OMS operation but also from police and BGB ration.
Talking to The Daily Star yesterday, the food minister couldn't give the exact statistics offhand but said to make the PFDS foolproof, his ministry is planning to distinguish rice sacks meant for various purposes [OMS, test relief, food for work, forces' rations, etc] by marking those with separate features.
Earlier, the government went for a massive OMS drive from January this year by allotting three tonnes of rice a day to some 14 to 17 dealers in each of the districts in the country. Under the drive, the poor could buy up to five kilograms of rice per family per day at a subsidised rate of Tk 24 a kg, while the coarse rice sold well over Tk 30 a kg on the retail markets.
At the same time, the government directed the intelligence agencies to report on the uptrend of rice market in the country. A food ministry source confirmed that law enforcers were asked to go for the seizure drive against illegal traders of PFDS grains in some districts on the basis of intelligence reports.
Brac Executive Director Dr Mahabub Hossain, who follows rice market trends regularly, earlier told The Daily Star, "The higher the gap between market and OMS prices, the higher is the chance of pilferage and rent-seeking."
Former director general of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies Dr Hossain suggested that the difference between the two prices should be Tk 5 a kg.
Though the government once decided to hike OMS rice price from Tk 24 to Tk 25 a kg in February, it backed out thinking the prices of rice on wholesale and retail markets would come down gradually.
The food minister on Friday visited almost a dozen OMS selling points from Jatrabari to Mohammadpur and Kamrangirchar to see for himself the status of the subsidised rice distribution.
Razzaque said he found people in the queues expressing satisfaction at the way rice was being sold to them. He considered that despite some incidents of unauthorised trading, the overall impact of OMS drive has been good on the market. It gave some cushion against high rice price, added the minister.
Asked about there involvement of some food officials as far as illegal transfer of OMS rice is concerned, the minister said, "There may be a few like that and we'll make sure they're taken into task through due departmental procedures."