12.5m litres of soybean oil, 5,000 tonnes of lentils for the poor

Amid rising demand and prices of everyday essentials, the government has opted to procure 12.5 million litres of soybean oil and 5,000 tonnes of lentils from local sources for sale to low-income people at subsidised prices.

The products will be sold through the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh or TCB. 

This comes as the Cabinet Committee on Government Purchase on Wednesday cleared the commerce ministry proposals to buy the staples at Tk 2.7 billion in a meeting chaired by Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal.

Md Abdul Barik, an additional cabinet secretary, told bdnews24.com that the government will directly purchase the goods from seven companies due to “urgency”.

The companies are Super Oil Refinery, Bashundhara Multi Foods Product, Sinha Edible Oil, Shun Shing Edible Oil, ACI Pure Flour, M/S Roy and Nadim Nava Ltd.

The government will pay between Tk 171 and Tk 173.95 per litre for the soybean oil and Tk 111.10 per kg for the lentils.

Barik said another 13 purchase proposals with a total budget of Tk 18.94 billion were greenlighted in the meeting.

The meeting also okayed dropping the Mirpur Integrated Township Development PPP project, he added.

Of the other proposals, seven were from the shipping ministry, four from the industries ministry, one from the Road Transport and Highways Division and another from the Local Government Division.

The committee authorised the improvement of a highway from Kushtia-Meherpur at Tk 1.01 billion.

The import of 30,000 tonnes of bagged prilled urea fertiliser from Qatar at Tk 1.52 billion was approved. Another 30,000 tonnes of bagged granular urea fertiliser will be bought from Karnaphuli Fertilizer Company Limited at Tk 1.51 billion.

The committee also approved the two separate imports of 30,000 tonnes of bulk granular urea fertiliser – one at Tk 1.51 billion and the other at Tk 1.49 billion.

A proposal to appoint consulting companies for Bangladesh Regional Waterway Transport Project 1 was also given the go-ahead. It will cost Tk 820 million.