The government will procure a total of 20 lakh tones Boro rice from the middle of May to ensure provide subsidized/free food for 50 million people.
Meanwhile, the program under ration food coverage is expanding from existing 20 million people to 50 million with different packages, sources said.
The Ministry of Finance has already disbursed Tk 875 cr to procure of 2.0 lakh tone rice to operate the Food Friendly Program.
Sarwar Mahmud, Director General of Directorate General of Food told Business Mirror that this year the Food Ministry will procure 3 lakh tones of more boro rice for feeding jobless stagnant people.
“Normally the ministry procure 16/17 lakh tones of Boro each year but this year we will procure 20 lakhs tones of rice including 2 lakh ton boro paddy,” Sarwar Mahmud added.
Besides, The Food Friendly Program launched earlier from 2016 to feed rationing food to different professionals between March-April period will extend one more Month of May for Corona Pandemic.
Disaster management ministry is now running distribution of Tk 10 per kg subsidies price of rice program for ration cardholders of 50 lakh low income families. The government allocates 7,50,000 tone rice in the this fiscal budget to run ration card program.
A 23 committees under Labour Ministry across the country are identifying labours who lost their job for Cornoa Pandemic.
According to the survey jointly conducted by two independent local research centers — the Power and Participation Research Center and BRAC Institute of Governance and Development -revealed that “The average income in the slums of Bangladeshi cities and among the rural poor has dropped by more than 80% since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
On April 16,Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a videoconference from her official residence Ganabhaban said the government is going to issue 50 lakh more ration cards for vulnerable families hit by the countrywide shutdown due to the coronavirus situation.
Millions of people have become jobless across the country, as the shutdown announced by the government since late March in a bid to contain the COVID-19 outbreak continues.
