Hundreds of people who queued up to buy rice from open market sales outlets at different places in the capital on Saturday had to go back empty-handed as the stocks were finished long before the scheduled time.
Stocks at the OMS outlets in most areas, including Tejgaon, Karwan Bazaar and Mirpur, reportedly ran out before noon although the dealers were supposed to sell rice till 5:00pm.
One can buy a maximum amount 5 kgs of rice a day at Tk 24 per kg from the OMS outlets. Coarse rice is still selling at Tk 34-36 a kg in the retail markets despite a bumper Boro production this year.
'I could not buy OMS rice even after standing for more than two hours in the queue,' said Abdul Karim, who was one of the about 100 people who were returning from the outlet in Karwan Bazaar with disappointment written large on their faces.
The director general of the Directorate of Food, Ahmad Hossain Khan, said that OMS rice could not be sold on Wednesday and Thursday due to the countrywide hartal.
'Demand for OMS rice has increased suddenly due to last week's hartal and announcement of another hartal from Sunday. We have now decided to continue the OMS during hartal,' he told New Age on Saturday.
Khan, however, said that the number of outlets, which earlier was over 300 in Dhaka city, would be limited to 150 as rice prices had started falling.
The dealers and buyers attributed the higher prices of rice in the retail shops, even in the Boro season when there is no shortage of rice, to the 48-hour hartal called by the opposition parties and also the 30-hour hartal beginning today (Sunday). This was the reason for the sudden rush to the OMS outlets.
Each outlet is scheduled to sell three tonnes of rice a day from 9:00am to 5:00pm everyday excepting on Friday and Tuesday, said an official at the OMS control room.
He said that a total of 100 trucks sold rice at different points across the city.
'We have received reports that stocks in most of the trucks were exhausted by 1:00pm,' the official added.
Mariam, who had been waiting for nearly three hours in a long queue at the Karwan Bazaar outlet, said the OMS rice was selling for Tk 24 a kg whereas the price was Tk 34 to Tk 35 in retail markets.
'One can easily save at least Tk 50 a day if they buy five kgs of rice from the OMS outlets,' she said.
Nizam Uddin of Begunbari, who came to the outlet near Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology in Tejgaon, said he arrived at around 11:15am and found a long queue there. He complained that the stock was finished within half an hour so he could not buy any rice.
'Around 100 people, mostly women, returned disappointed from the outlet,' Nizam mentioned.
The government started open market sale of rice in the city on 26 December, 2010 in the face of soaring rice prices.
Source : New Age
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