By Xinhua,
Dhaka : In view of escalating rise of food prices, the Bangladeshi caretaker government decided to sell rice at fair price from Aug. 20 to support the poor and limited income groups before Ramadan which will start at the beginning of September.
Caretaker government finance advisor Mirza Azizul Islam told reporters Tuesday the Open Market Sale (OMS) run by paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles will start from Aug. 20 and continue for two months. One kg of rice will be sold at 28 taka (about 40 U.S. cents).
A total of 219,566 tons of rice will be sold out through OMS operation across the country including capital Dhaka.
Apart from OMS, Bangladesh Rifles will also open fair price shops before Ramadan.
Bangladesh suffered a huge rice loss due to last year’s twice floods and cyclone Sidr. However, the country had good paddy harvest of 17.7 million tons in ‘Boro’ season.
Besides, the government procured rice from India and other food surplus countries to build up a food security reserve to meet any exigency.