Online Desk: One crore Trading Corporation Bangladesh (TCB) card holder families will get 5kgs of rice at Tk 30 from July 1, said Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder on Sunday. He said currently one crore families are getting TCB products and from July 1 they will get 5 kgs of rice at Tk 30 along with other items.

The open market sales (OMS) dealers will provide the rice, he said while talking to reporters after a meeting over the progress of Boro procurement at the Secretariat.

Sadhan Chandra said, “When the price of rice was slightly higher, we conducted the rice sale through 2,500 OMS dealers across the country and we also distributed additional 2 lakh metric tonnes of rice through OMS after taking approval from the Finance Ministry.” Besides, we also provide rice to 50 lakh families regularly through conducting food-friendly programme and they are getting 30 kgs of rice each month.

The minister also informed the media that the government has procured 6,56,587 metric tonnes of rice and 1,15,272 metric tonnes of paddy till June 24 during the ongoing boro procurement season. He said the government had set a target to procure 12.5 lakh metric tonnes of rice and 4 lakh metric tonnes of paddy and the targets will be fulfilled this June.