TCB cuts prices of three items

FT ONLINE

TCB reduced Thursday the prices of lentil, chickpeas and dates in its ongoing open market sale (OMS) programme across the country.

The new price lists of the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) will come into effect from today (Friday).

"TCB decided to reduce the prices of the three essential items considering the interest of the consumers," a high official of TCB said after a meeting.

As per the decision, lentil will be sold at Tk 50 per kg which was sold at Tk 55 on Thursday while chick peas at Tk 65 instead of Tk 70 and dates at Tk 100 instead of Tk 120.

A consumer could now purchase five kgs of sugar, five kg lentil, five litre soybean, 10 kg chick peas and two kgs of dates at a time.

Earlier a consumer was allowed to purchase four kgs of sugar at Tk 55 per kg, four kgs of lentil at Tk 55, five litre of soybean at Tk 85 per litre, five kgs of check peas at Tk 70 and one kg of dates at Tk 120 per kg.

However, prices of sugar and soybean oil will remain same at Tk 55 per kg and Tk 85 per litre respectively.

Earlier the state run trade agency started selling essential commodities across the country from May 06 l for the ongoing holy month of Ramadan and the upcoming Eid-ul- Fitr.

TCB is selling the essential commodities during the holy month aiming to retain market prices stable.

TCB deployed a total of 184 mobile trucks where the designated dealers are now selling the consumables at subsidised rates.

The TCB official said that 32 trucks were deployed at different areas of the capital while 10 in Chottagram metropolitan city, five others at other divisional cities and two in each district towns. TCB also decided to increase the allocation of the essentials to be sold from each truck. Apart from truck-sale, the TCB is selling the five commodities through its 10 retail outlets and 2,784 dealers in the country.