OMS rice sale to continue
Food minister says they will carry on programme until market becomes stable
The government will continue the Open Market Sale (OMS) programme as long as it needs to keep the rice market stable, said Food Minister Shadhan Chandra Majumder during a press conference at the secretariat yesterday.
Alongside the OMS programme, the ministry will continue to import rice to tackle a probable Aman production shortfall due to drought, he said.
Shadhan also mentioned they have completed internal procurement of Boro rice and procured more than their target.
"Our target was 11 lakh tonnes of parboiled rice and 50,000 tonnes of sunned rice. We've already procured 11,21,910 tonnes of parboiled rice and 55,208 tonnes of sunned rice."
Mentioning that the government has decreased the tax rate, he said they have extended the deadline for rice import to December 30 from October 30.
"We've already issued a gazette notification so that businesspersons can apply and open LCs by September 30 for importing rice," he said.
Under the OMS and FFP programme, one crore beneficiaries will get rice at Tk 30 a kg under OMS and 50 lakh special cardholders at Tk 15 per kg under FFP.
Meanwhile, the Cabinet Committee on Government Purchase approved the import of five lakh tonnes of wheat from Russia and 3.3 lakh tonnes of rice from Vietnam and India at a total cost of $378 million (Tk 3,590 crore) under G2G arrangements.
Besides, the ministry is preparing to import 2 lakh tonnes of rice from Myanmar.
On Sunday, the prime minister at the cabinet meeting gave directives to take measures to import rice from alternative sources.
Asked about that, Shadhan said the alternative source for wheat is Russia and Ukraine and rice is Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.
"We are continuously monitoring the rice price. We have also fined dishonest traders and started the prosecution process," he said.