Supply little but demand huge

Arif Shaon: Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) started open market sales (OMS) of essential commodities across the country from Sunday ahead of the holy month of Ramadan.

A total of 179 trucks, of which 32 trucks in Dhaka, 10 trucks in Chittagong, five trucks each in other divisional cities and two trucks each in district towns are selling the essential commodities.

A consumer can buy highest 4kgs of sugar, 2kgs of lentil, 5 liters of soybean oil, 5kgs of gram and one kg date from the OMS.

Each liter of soybean is being sold for Taka 80 while Taka 48 fixed for each kilogram of sugar, Taka 89.95 for each kilogram of lentil, Taka 70 for each kilogram of gram and Taka 90 for each kilogram of date.

TCB has set a target of daily sale of 300-400kgs of sugar, 150-200kgs of lentil, 400-800kgs of gram, 50kgs of date and 300-400 liters of soybean oil at a truck.

But TCB officials said they could meet only a small portion of the demand for essentials by importing and selling during Ramadan but it lacks manpower for effective market monitoring.

At the beginning of the service, the outlets in the capital were crowded with people of limited and low income groups, and many people.

During visiting it was seen that the outlets found huge crowds waiting to buy goods. A number of customers returned home empty handed.


Ramadan begins from June 6 or 7, subject to the appearance of moon. The government has, as a matter of tradition, given TCB the responsibility to monitor markets as well as to sell limited stocks of commodities such as gram, lentil, edible oil, onion and sugar-the items that are in very high demand during the month of fasting.

The lone public sector importing agency has neither any financial nor organisational strength to ensure supply as per huge demand of the market. Resultantly, the liability of failure too lies on the shoulder of the agency, sources said.


Risingbd/DHAKA/May 30, 2016/ Swan/Mukul