Customers have been returning home empty-handed from Open Market Sale (OMS) points in the capital for the last month as the government has reduced the amount of rationing of coarse rice despite a huge demand in the market.
People from lower income groups in the capital are the worst sufferers of the decision, as they often failed to buy rice from the regular market due to the increased price of rice for last two weeks.
“I could not to buy rice from here despite waiting for an hour in the queue,” said Jahanara Khatun, a housewife standing in front of the OMS point located at the city’s Rampura Bridge at 11am yesterday.
“There are many more people buying rice from OMS this year, and that is creating the shortage,” said Nurul Islam Mridha, an OMS dealer. He thinks this could have happened due to the rising price of coarse rice in the market.
In addition, the government reduced nearly half the amount of rice allocation for OMS last month which is causing suffering to the low income groups, who are the main customers of OMS.
“We could not meet the demand of customers as we are receiving only half as much rice as before from the government,” Mridha said.
Currently the dealers are getting 1.125 metric tonnes of coarse rice and the same amount of flour from the government while it was 2 tonnes of rice and 1 tonne of flour a month ago for daily sale at the OMS points.
The government also brought down the number of trucks selling OMS goods from 60 to 39 in the capital. The rice is sold at Tk24 per kg. The usual market price of the same rice is between Tk37 and Tk38 now, up from Tk28 this time last year.
Kawser Ahmed, a sub-inspector of food rationing under Dhaka food controller’s office told the Dhaka Tribune: “We have already sent demand notes for allocating more rice for OMS to the ministry due to the huge demand.”
“We hope that the government will release new orders with increased allocation soon,” he added.
Rice retailers said the price of rice had increased significantly in the market in the past few weeks. Currently 1kg of coarse rice is being sold at Tk38 (Tk32 four weeks ago) and 1kg of medium category rice at Tk48 (Tk38 four weeks ago), said Hossain Ali, a retailer in the city’s Shewrapara area.
However, the Agricultural Marketing Department said as of yesterday the retail price of coarse rice in the city’s market was Tk35 per kg while the wholesale price was Tk33.50 per kg.
Dr Asaduzzaman, a research fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, told the Dhaka Tribune this was happening because the government’s food reserves had declined significantly during the Aman harvesting period.
As of January 13, the status of government’s food reserve was about 935.74 lakh metric tonnes while it was about 1,285.48 lakh metric tonnes same time last year.
Of the current reserve, 700.96 metric tonnes is rice and the rest is wheat. Last year they were 1,078.93 and 206.93 metric tonnes respectively.
