Shawdesh Desk:

Queues for buying rice and flour at a subsidised rate from open market sales points in the capital are getting longer ahead of Ramadan amid continuous price hikes of essential food items.

People, especially from lower and lower-middle groups, are forced to wait for hours in queues to buy the two main staples and yet many have returned empty-handed.

Directorate General of Food has been selling the two items through the OMS programme in 2,419 mobile trucks across the country since the Covid-19 pandemic struck the country considering the hardship of people.

In Dhaka, 70 mobile trucks and 150 shops are selling the two food items from Sunday to Thursday. The programme runs from 9:00am to 5:00pm

On Thursday around 11:45am, Nur Nabi, a rickshaw puller and the sole earner of his four-member family said that he stood in a queue at West Panthapath around 7:00am skipping his work and was still waiting for his turn.

‘Half of my day has gone. If I do not get the items today, I have to come another day at my income hour,’ he said, disappointed.

Eighty-year-old Lakhsmi, who queued at 6:30am at the same point, said that it was difficult for her to stand for such long hours at this age.

‘The prices of everything, including essential items and house rent, have soared. My son, who is the sole breadwinner, cannot afford these items at regular prices. So, I am bound to wait for my serial,’ she said.

A good number of people were found waiting in queues in different spots, including West Panthapath, Shukrabad and Bir Uttam CR Dutta Road in Banglamotor on Thursday.

Many consumers complained that quarrels, pushing and shoving for a place in the queue became a common picture, as there was no one to monitor it and distribute the items.

A housewife from Shukrabad said, ‘Some people went to work after writing their serial numbers. People, who were not present since morning, entered the queue in the name of a serial, creating chaos.’

Some people who regularly buy from an OMS shop in Shukrabad complain that dealer Md Nuruk Islam Mridha sells rice and flour until noon to a specific number of people two or three days a week.

They also alleged that the dealer sells a whole sack of rice at Tk 1,200 or Tk 1,300 to some people, including hotel owners, while commoners wait in the long queue for hours and return home empty-handed.

A relative of the dealer refuted the allegation saying that the quality of the rice is not good enough to attract hotel owners.

No inspector was seen at the West Panthapath, Shukrabad and Bir Uttam CR Dutta Road sales points between 11:00am and 2:00pm. Workers at the points however claimed that inspectors visited the selling points in the morning.

Topon Kumar Das, director of the Supply, Distribution and Marketing Department at the Directorate General of Food, said that it was the inspector’s job to monitor such irregularities and be present on the spot during sales hours.

‘We will take action if someone files proper complaints about their absence and irregularities,’ he said.

He, however, said that sometimes the department assigns an inspector to supervise multiple points because of inadequate human resources. For this reason, inspectors can be absent sometimes at some points.

People can purchase one kilogramme of rice at Tk 30 and one kilogramme of flour at Tk 24 under the service.

A website run by the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh showed that a kilogramme of coarse rice was selling at Tk 46 to Tk 50 and flour at Tk 58 to Tk 60 in the retail market on Thursday.