TCB to sell tea, salt, soap at subsidised rates

The government will start selling five more items — tea, salt, detergent, and two kinds of soap — at subsidised rates through the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) from November this year.

Commerce Adviser Sk Bashir Uddin announced this at a meeting at the ministry in Dhaka on the listing of beneficiary families for the subsidies and the activation of relevant identification cards.

Local government representatives prepare the lists of low-income families, who are then provided identification cards by the TCB for the purchase of subsidised commodities.

Currently, the government sells three products — sugar, lentils, and soybean oil — at subsidised rates to low-income groups.

The adviser also said the government has been annually providing Tk 5,000 crore in subsidies through the sale of food items by the TCB, according to a statement from the commerce ministry yesterday.

There are 60,34,316 active family cards, and the process of activating three lakh more family cards is underway as the government targets to cater to one crore families under the TCB sales programme.