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Govt to supply 15pc of April rice need

Staff Correspondent
The government will supply 15 percent of the country's requirement of rice next month through various safety net programmes amid continued price escalation.
Food Secretary Mollah Wahiduzzaman yesterday told The Daily Star that the government would inject around 2.8 lakh tonnes of rice into the market through these programmes.
According to Food Planning and Monitoring Unit (FPM) statistics, the annual demand for rice in the country is 2.55 crore tonnes with the monthly requirement being 21.25 lakh tonnes.
The overall food situation and
distribution programme were reviewed at a high level meeting yesterday at the food ministry with the food secretary in the chair.
Meanwhile, an emergency meeting of the Advisory Committee on Purchase is scheduled for today. Food ministry sources said the proposal for procuring four lakh tonnes of rice from India will be placed at the meeting.
Wahiduzzaman said that of the 2.8 lakh tonnes of rice, 2.58 lakh tonnes will be distributed through open market sale (OMS) and vulnerable group feeding (VGF) programmes.
The meeting at the food ministry decided that the government
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would raise the number of OMS outlets to 6,530 across the country next month. Currently 2,730 OMS outlets are in operation, and 3,800 more will be set up.
Of the total OMS outlets, 510 will sell rice in six city corporations, 580 will operate in 58 districts and the rest will be activated at upazila levels and at places with many industrial units.
The food secretary said if the ministry cannot appoint newdealers at places, the Directorate of Food will continue sale in those places by sendingtrucks.
A total of 1.2 lakh tonnes of rice will be sold through OMS, and the food ministry will increase per head sale to five Kg from four kg while dealers' commission will be enhanced toTk 1.5 per kg from Tk 1 per kg.
At present, the government has VGF programmes in 14 Sidr and Monga (famine like situation) affected districts and it will bring another 37 districts under this programme, the food secretary mentioned.
"The government will provide additional 54 thousand 463 tonnes of rice to expand the VGF programme in April," Wahiduzzarnan said.
I he government will not increase the existing 15 kg rice per head for VGF.