A news has been published in The Daily Star on January 16 titled "Pricier the rice longer the queue." The news mentioned that "Nearly 125 OMS trucks with 3000 kgs of rice each sell subsidised rice to 75000 people five days a week while many return empty handed in the city."

Very recently, while I was passing along the Karwan Bazar railway market road at about 9.30

in the morning, to my surprise I observed that a truck carrying the banner of OMS of rice hurriedly stopped near a rice trading shop, very quickly unloaded some gunny bags of rice to that shop and immediately left. It was something like selling the OMS rice to open market rice traders for illegal benefit.

Now, from the news it became clear that the occurrence was an

illegal trade and it has also become clear to me as to why 'many return empty handed in the city' as stated in the news. The authorities concerned should carry out a surprise check to unearth the unscrupulous activities concerning the life saving rice of poor people and take severe measures accordingly.

Md. Delwar Hossain East Rampura, Dhaka