OMS rice, flour to be restricted for cardholders only

The government is going to restrict the sales of rice and flour under its Open Market Sale (OMS) for programme specific cardholders only. 

The buyers will have to collect OMS cards similar to TCB ones from the dealers by showing their national identity card.

A cardholder will be allowed to buy a maximum of 5kg of rice and 5kg of flour from OMS once a week, Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumdar said at a press briefing on Sunday.

He said the system will soon be introduced which is already in motion on an experimental basis.

He expects the OMS card system to be fully operational within the next three to four months. 

The food minister said that those who need OMS cards are already submitting their national cards to the dealers. 

"From there, one family member is selected and the rest of the cards are returned. This prevents multiple people from the same family from collecting OMS products," the minister said.

The minister said the government has properly managed food supply and stockpiling in the country despite several challenges. 

The government will provide 5kg of rice at Tk30 to the one crore TCB card holder families from 1 July, said Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder.

The minister said when the cardholders will get their TCB items, they will also get the rice through OMS dealers, that is, the rice has been included as a TCB item.

The government has set a target to procure 12.5 lakh tonnes of rice and four lakh tonnes of paddy in the current financial year, the minister mentioned.

The government has already procured 6,56,578 tonnes of rice and 1,15,272 tonnes of paddy till June 24, the minister informed reporters at the briefing. 

Till 25 June, the government had a stockpile of 18.68 lakh tonnes of food grains (including rice, paddy and wheat), he further said. "Twelve lakh tonnes of rice and two lakh tonnes of wheat as emergency stock till June 30 is sufficient."

The minister said that the law related to food production, storage, marketing and transportation will be passed soon. 

"If the law is passed, manipulation and irregularities in the market of rice and other food products will stop," he added.