Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder on Thursday said the government will provide 10kg of free rice to one crore ultra-poor families each under the VGF (Vulnerable Group Feeding) programme in the upcoming Ramadan.
The families who are currently not receiving any form of government aid will get the rice and the initiative will start at the beginning of Ramadan, he said.
The minister said this while responding to a question from reporters at a press briefing at the Secretariat.
“We want to give Atap rice, which we have imported from Myanmar, during Ramadan. It will be distributed by the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief,” he said.
He also commented that at least people will not be embarrassed by rice during the upcoming Ramadan.
The food minister also said the biggest distribution programme is going on this year since independence.
“Rice and flour are being distributed through about 2,500 dealers. OMS is usually closed during this time. In Open Market Sales (OMS), low-income people are getting rice at Tk 30 per kg and flour at Tk 24 per kg currently and it will continue,” he said.
He said a total of 50 lakh families will get 30 kg of rice per month at the rate of Tk 15 per kg from next March.
The food-friendly programme will run for five months in March, April, May, September and October, and the allocation of flour in OMS is being increased, said the minister.
The country has achieved bumper Aman yield and the country won’t need to import rice once a good yield of Boro paddy is achieved, he said.
“The government reserves are also plentiful. Now we have the largest stockpile of rice since independence. According to the data of February 15, 20 lakh 33 thousand tons of government food grains are stored,” said the food minister.
“Some 374,030 tonnes of Aman rice has been procured till yesterday from domestic source. Our target is 5 lakh MT,” he said.