The government has decided to increase the price of pulses and sugar sold to one crore households through cards across the country by Rs 5 per kg. Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) sells these products at subsidized prices.

In a press release on Tuesday, the government agency TCB informed this information. The new prices will be effective as soon as the sale of December products starts today, Wednesday. Accordingly, per kg sugar will be sold at Tk 60 instead of Tk 55 and pulses will be sold at Tk 70 instead of Tk 65. However, TCB has kept the price of soybean oil unchanged at Tk 110 per liter.

According to TCB, one crore families with cards in all metropolitan cities, districts and upazilas of the country will get these products. At this time, the city corporation, district and upazila administration will provide full cooperation. The sale of these products will be conducted from the distributor’s shop or the designated permanent shop as per the scheduled date and time.

Meanwhile, yesterday’s market price list of TCB showed that large grain lentils are being sold at Tk 100 to Tk 110 per kg in the market. The price of medium grain lentils is now Tk 125 to Tk 130. The price of small grain lentils is kept at Tk 135 to Tk 140 per kg. And the price of sugar per kg is falling from 110 to 115 taka. However, the price of these products is slightly higher than the market price of TCB.

According to TCB calculations, the prices of large, medium and small grain pulses have increased by 20, 31 and 31 percent respectively in the last one year. And the price of sugar has increased by 45 percent. Since the Russia-Ukraine war, there has been instability in the commodity market in the country. The prices of all kinds of daily commodities including rice, dal, sugar, soybeans have increased gradually.

In this situation, the government increased the scope of sale of daily commodities at subsidized prices for low income people through TCB. These subsidized products, in many cases half the market price, are sold to card-holding households. It reduces the pressure of market consumption in the family of low income people.

The market pressure has not subsided yet. The prices of most of the daily products are increased. In the meantime, TCBO has increased the prices of two of its products, which will increase the cost of low-income people. In mid-November, the price of OMS flour under the government’s food friendly program was increased by Rs 6 per kg. This time TCB increased the prices of pulses and sugar.

There have been various changes in the activities of TCB in the last one year. In particular, to restore order in the sales process, the government is stopping the sale of products by trucks and giving products through distributors. Finally, to curb the irregularities, the government limited this open-to-all program to one crore families. Then it was decided, these one crore families will be given daily commodities through cards. Apart from this, the government now sells daily commodities at least once every month.