Consumers rushed to the TCB lorries selling onions at a lower price than the regular market as the demand rose high days before Eid-ul-Azha when the Muslims sacrifice animals.
But the government’s open market sale programme has so far failed to cast any impact on the regular market which saw several jumps in the vegetable’s prices after India stopped export.
The onion was retailed at Tk80 per kg in the capital yesterday. The OMS price is Tk50 per kg and the purchase limit is 2kg per person.
“Trucks (of onions) became empty in just one and a half hours during the last two days of OMS programme as the people thronged to grab a share of low-priced onions before Eid-ul-Azha,” Hanif Mamun, an official at the Bangladesh Secretariat, told Dhaka Tribune.
On August 23, the Indian government hiked the minimum export price of the vegetable to $700 per metric ton, up from $425 per metric ton to check rising onion prices.
Under the OMS programme, TCB also sells sugar at Tk37 per kg and soybean oil at Tk89 per litre through 173 lorries across the country.
A customer will be allowed to buy 4 kg sugar, 2 kg onion and 10 litres of soybean oil.
The lorries are stationed at 24 points in the capital, 10 in Chittagong, five each in other divisional headquarters and two each in the district headquarters.