Dhaka, Thursday


28 March 2024


Business Insider Bangladesh

Govt to buy 1.10cr litres of soybean oil, 8,000 tonnes of lentil for TCB

BI Report || BusinessInsider

Published: 14:45, 19 January 2023   Update: 19:48, 19 January 2023
Govt to buy 1.10cr litres of soybean oil, 8,000 tonnes of lentil for TCB

Photo: Collected

The government has approved the procurement of 1.10 crore litres of soybean oil and 8,000 tonnes of lentils for the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB), a state-run agency organisation under the commerce ministry.

Two separate approvals came at the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Public Procurement held on Thursday.

While briefing the media after the meeting, Cabinet Division Additional Secretary Sayeed Mahbub Khan, said the government will procure the soybean oil at the cost of Tk 182 per litre and the total cost will stand at Tk 200.20 crore.

Apart from this, the government will buy 8,000 tonnes of lentils from India at the cost of Tk 92.46 and the total cost will stand at Tk 73.96 crore, Khan said.

The meeting also approved four separate proposals including the soybean oil and lentil procurement at a total cost of Tk 1,179 crore, he said.

Of the total Tk 1,179 crore, Tk 223.62 crore will come from the government fund while the country’s development partner ADB will provide the rest Tk 9,55.54 crore as loan.

The government is going to procure soybean oil and lentils to shoulder the burden of the country’s poor people amid the huge inflationary pressure, said the government official.

Meanwhile, the government on January 10 began selling lentils, edible oil and sugar to one crore low and middle-income groups at a subsidised rate once a month across the country to shoulder their hardship amid the global volatile economic condition.

Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi formally inaugurated the TCB sale in the city’s Agargaon area on that day.

Soybean oil at Tk 110 per litre, sugar at Tk 60 per kilogram and lentils at Tk 70 per kilogram were being sold among the people through the TCB.

Each family cardholder can buy a maximum of two litres of soybean oil, two kilograms of lentils and a maximum of one kilogram of sugar.

Tipu Munshi said the government spent Tk 5,200 crore as a subsidy for the TCB products in the last year.

Now people are being given two litres of soybean oil, two kilograms of lentils and one kilogram of sugar under a package of Tk 420, said the commerce minister.

Nagad
Walton