About one crore families will get 10 kg of rice during Eid festival
On the occasion of the upcoming Eid-ul-Azha, 1 crore families of the country with family cards will get the opportunity to buy 10 kg of rice at the rate of Tk. 30 per kg.
Recently, a letter has been sent to all the Deputy Commissioners (DCs) with this allocation from the Directorate of Disaster Management. The government has allocated 1 lakh 515 tons of rice for this.
According to the letter, a total of 1 crore 51 thousand 500 family cards including 87 lakh 79 thousand 649 for 492 upazilas in 64 districts of the country and 12 lakh 53 thousand 851 for 329 municipalities of category A, B and C under the family program on the occasion of the upcoming holy Eid-ul-Azha of the fiscal year 2022-23. On the other hand, 1 lakh 515 MT of VGF rice at the rate of 10 kg per card has been allocated according to the division following the conditions.
Allotted VGF rice should be lifted and distributed by June 20.
Currently, 1 crore families are getting the opportunity to buy three products at subsidized prices through family cards. TCB, the government marketing agency under the Ministry of Commerce, is selling soybean oil, pulses and sugar to the beneficiaries at low prices. Rice is newly added to that product list.
Food Secretary Ismail Hossain said that currently some products are being sold at affordable prices to help low-income people through TCB. Rice is being added to that list. Family card holders will get this facility.
According to the allocation conditions, the concerned district administrators will inform the local parliamentarians about the allocation of these VGFs. According to the 2016 data of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the list should be prepared by redistributing the number of VGF cards allocated union and ward wise. Demographic information is available by logging on to the website www.bbs.gov.bd.
This assistance should be given to distressed, extremely poor individuals and families. However, priority should be given to the poor and ultra poor affected by recent floods and other natural disasters.
Apart from this, individuals and families fulfilling at least four of the following conditions will be considered poor or ultra-poor. These include families owning no land other than a house, families dependent on daily wage earners, families dependent on the income of female laborers or alms, families with no earning adult male members, families with school-going children who have to work for income, families with no income earners, families whose husbands are abandoned, separated or divorced women, families whose heads are poor freedom fighters, families whose heads are poor or disabled, families who have not received any micro-loans, families who are victims of natural calamities and are in dire need of food and money and whose family members do not get two meals a day for most of the year.
Meanwhile, under the ongoing food friendly program of the government, the sale of rice to the 'very poor' people at the village level at the rate of Tk. 15 per kg will start on September 1. It will continue until November. This rice will be sold at a subsidized price among 50 lakh beneficiaries at the union level across the country.