The New Nation - Internet Edition

Our Correspondent, Barisal

The open market sale of rice begins in 40 upazilas of six southern districts of the Barisal division on Wednesday.

The poor and middle-income group people demanding increase of quota and decreasing of price have welcomed the programme as the price of the coarse variety has already shot up to between Tk 30 and 32 Tk per kilogram.

'The quality of rice is satisfactory, but the quota is not sufficient. My seven-member family needs 3kg rice every day. So, the government should increase the daily quota of rice and ensure its regular supply for the benefit of the poor,' said Nurunabi, a rickshaw puller to turn up at an OMS outlet at Port Road area of Barisal city at 10:45am on Wednesday.

'Actually, the consumers want to have better-quality rice in Ramzan, better than what is sold under the previous OMS programme. But the price is not much lower than the Tk 32 of coarse rice on the retail market', said Mawlana Shafiqullah, a madrasha teacher standing in queue of an OMS outlet at Kawnia area of the city.

However dealers at different markets in the city have expressed little enthusiasm for the ongoing OMS programme as their profit margin this year is less than last year's.

On other hand Barisal district controller of food Abu Naim Md. Shafiqul Alam said that dealerships of 9 out of 41 OMS dealers of the city named Rafikul Islam, Kazi Rafik, Kabir Howladar, Saem Talukdar, Mominul Huq, Md. Alaudin, Ripon Howladar, Sirajul Huq and Arun Dutta have been cancelled due to irregularities while number of dealers in the district has been increased from 63 to 79.

Barisal regional food controller Sukumar Chandra Roy said the government has introduced the OMS programme to stabilize the prices of rice in the market before Ramazan and Durga Puja and they have sufficient stock to run the programme smoothly in the region.

A total of 383 sale centers opened in Barisal division, including 32 in the Barisal city areas, 79 in Barisal district excluding city, 35 sale centers in Jhalakathi, 56 sale centers in Pirojpur, 66 sale centers in Patuakhali, 72 sale centers in Bhola and 43 sale centers in Barguna.

Every dealers of Barisal city will draw 765 kilograms of rice and every dealer of district, upazila or municipal town will draw 510 Kg of rice per day from the government warehouse at various places of the districts, the official sources said.

The dealers will purchase it for Tk 26.50. A dealer will get Tk 1.50 commission for selling one kg rice under the programme.

On the other hand, the government is providing about Tk 5 as subsidy for selling one kg of rice under the OMS programme, said the official.

A person can buy the highest amount of three kilograms of rice from a dealer at a time and 6,78,300 people would be benefited in Barisal division by selling of OMS rice at the rate of Tk 28 a kilogram.