TCB starts selling four essentials at subsidised rate

The state-run Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) yesterday began selling four essential commodities at a rate lower than the market prices.

Sales in Dhaka will start today.

Under the initiative, one crore family cardholders will get rice, edible oil, lentil and sugar for the month of September, the TCB stated in a press release.

Cardholders will get rice at Tk 30 per kilogramme and a litre of soybean or rice bran oil for Tk 100 per litre. The TCB will also sell lentil at Tk 60 per kg and sugar at Tk 70 per kg.

This is far lower than current retail prices, which list each kilogramme of rice at Tk 48, sugar at Tk 130, lentil at Tk 105 and each litre of soybean or rice bran oil at Tk 170.

The government has taken the initiative to provide these subsidies from taxpayers' money in order to cushion the impact of soaring food and non-food prices on poor and low-income families.

The TCB has been selling essential commodities among one crore low-income families since March after moving away from its decades-old practice of selling key food items through mobile trucks.