55 lakh families to get 6-month food aid per year thru OMS: Adviser Ali Imam

Food Adviser Ali Imam Majumder today (17 May) said that 55 lakh low-income families will be provided with food items at lower prices under the Open Market Sale (OMS) programme by increasing the number of families by 5 lakh from the existing 50 lakh.

"The duration of this assistance is currently five months per year. But it has been decided to increase the duration of the assistance from five months to six months a year," he told BSS in an interview. 

The adviser said the state-run Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) buys products from the local market and supplies those to people at a low price with subsidies. "Moreover, the government provides a large subsidy on rice under the 'Food Friendly Programme' of the Ministry's OMS of Foodgrains. 

"This is the largest outlet for supply as 50 lakh families get 30 kg of rice for five months a year until this fiscal year (2024-25)," he added.

It has also been specified under the Food Security Programme for next year's budget, said the adviser, adding that the duration will be six months and the number of beneficiaries will be increased to 55 lakh in the next fiscal year of 2025-26.

Majumder said there are 14,65,355 tonnes of rice and wheat stocks now.

Out of these, rice is 11,44,655 tonnes and wheat is 3,05,880 tonnes, while another wheat ship is coming and a tender will also be given for the purchase of wheat.

"We may have to import some rice, but not now, we will import rice later," said Majumder.

The adviser said there has been a very good harvest of Boro rice in the current season. 

"Our goal is to procure 14 lakh tonnes of Boro rice from domestic sources. And if we can procure this, we will not have to import rice from abroad right now. Last time, we had to import rice from abroad because the yield of Aman rice was not good." 

This time, the yield of Aman rice is good, so the amount of rice purchased from outside will be less, he said.

He said the many Bengali middle-class families currently do not realise that wheat has become a staple food along with rice.

The annual demand for wheat in the country is 70 lakh tonnes, and 10 lakh tonnes are produced locally, 60 lakh tonnes are imported from abroad while most of this import is being covered by the private sector, he said, adding that of this volume, the government imports about 7 lakh tonnes for OMS.

On the possibility of food shortage for natural disasters, the adviser said, "Even the richest country in the world has no control over nature. In all those countries, crops are also destroyed due to drought or other reasons."

"It is the job of the food ministry to supply food to the market as needed. Our main job is to keep the market stable. In addition, rations are provided from the same godown to the armed forces, police, prison guards or those who receive rations. Wheat distribution through OMS is ongoing, but the amount produced in our country is not sufficient to supply. Our goal is to keep the price stable by keeping the supply of wheat through OMS," he said.

He said so far, a major source of rice imports is neighbouring India. "Basically, no neighbouring country other than India can supply parboiled rice. Myanmar or Vietnam does not produce parboiled rice."

"We mainly import Atap rice from Myanmar, Vietnam and Pakistan. Efforts are being made to increase the sources for rice import and many countries are making offers to import rice to us," said Majumder.

"We import some wheat from Russia under the government-to-government system, and some is also imported from any country in the world except Israel through international tenders," he said.

He said the Food Safety Authority is another wing of the ministry, although its activities are not yet significant or worth mentioning.

"We have plans to gradually increase their power. The DCs or in some cases, the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism or BSTI, issue licenses to restaurants. Work is underway to bring this process under the Food Ministry or the Food Safety Authority and this will take some time," he said.

The adviser said sanitary inspectors used to work for the Food Safety Authority. There was one in each municipal area. They were under the control of the civil surgeon or the administration, but they were under the municipality, he said.

Now that they have become city corporations, some things have come under their control. One officer of the Food Safety Authority has been given to each district, they participate in this work with the DCs, he said.

A small laboratory has been arranged for them, he said.

Asked about the Food Safety Act, the food adviser said, "All the provisions in the Food Safety Act cannot always be implemented in rural areas. For example, a small trader in a village who earns Tk150 to 200 at the end of the day cannot be fined Tk1,000. Many things that are seen in the socio-economic situation of the country conflict with the Food Safety Act, such as selling food on the streets."

"But if you look at it from the socio-economic perspective, you can see that a large portion of them are poor people. They are providing food at low cost, but if the trader is jailed here, the price of food will suddenly increase abnormally, which will be a problem for these consumers. Therefore, considering the socio-economic environment of the country, it will take time for us to implement food security," he said.

On the question of the crisis of wheat and rice godowns, he said, "Actually, we are under a little stress in this season. Most of the time, the crop is collected beyond its capacity and cannot be stored. Godowns are being set up to solve this problem. Also, these godowns are not permanent. They need to be repaired or rebuilt."

He said that trains are relatively cost-effective among the transport systems for supplying and transporting food items. However, there is an issue of the capacity, capability of the railways and the willingness or unwillingness of the railway officials, and this can also be considered, he said.

To keep the market price stable, rice and flour are being sold under the open market under the Public Food Distribution (PFD) programme, he said.

In order to make the scope of this programme more transparent, dynamic and people-friendly, the OMS Policy-2015 has been repealed and the OMS Policy-2024 has been issued, he added.