The Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) has a procurement programme worth Tk 8,000 crore this fiscal year. To curb irregularities in getting goods to low-income households, it is relying on digital systems at every step from verifying beneficiaries to delivery, the agency said.
It gave the figures at a business talk titled 'Trade with TCB' at the Army Golf Club in Dhaka on Thursday morning, held to make its services easier and draw more bidders and suppliers into its purchases. Commerce Minister Khandaker Abdul Muktadir attended as chief guest but did not speak; TCB chairman Brigadier General Mohammad Faisal Azad gave the welcome address.
TCB said that after going digital in fiscal 2024-25 it now works through 7,300 dealers with 42 regional offices across 64 districts. Its 48 warehouses hold about 51,300 tonnes, and it supplies 650,000 tonnes of goods in all. It has already met 86 per cent of its local and 59 per cent of its international purchase targets.
For the coming Ramadan it plans to supply 26,000 tonnes of five special items, with 520 trucks ready, each serving 400 buyers a day.
Speakers including Dr Badrun Nessa Ahmed, senior research fellow at BIDS, and CPD executive director Naznin Ahmed said digital cards alone will not deliver results unless the right beneficiaries are chosen, and that monitoring must be stepped up to stop influential people taking extra benefits.
Calling TCB's role vital amid high inflation and volatile markets, they urged wider coverage and bigger bundles of goods, partnerships with the private sector, bringing TCB into the social protection programme, and gathering feedback from consumers.
Photo: Press Information Department / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
Source: Amar Desh
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