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The Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) has issued new guidelines specifying who will be eligible for its family cards to purchase essential commodities at subsidised or reduced prices.
Under the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Commerce, extremely poor and low-income families, landless people, farm labourers, day labourers, tea workers, rice-mill workers, factory workers and people unable to earn a livelihood will be considered for TCB family cards.
Widows, divorced or abandoned women, financially vulnerable elderly women-led families, and disadvantaged households with children or persons with disabilities will receive priority.
Applicants must be permanent residents of the relevant city corporation, municipality or union. They must have a national identity card (NID) and an active mobile phone number registered in their own name using the NID. Where applicable, information on the spouse’s NID must also be provided.
No more than one person from the same family will be eligible for the benefit.
Each TCB family-card holder will regularly receive two litres of edible oil, two kilograms of lentils and one kilogram of sugar. The subsidised prices will be Tk100 per litre for oil, Tk60 per kg for lentils and Tk70 per kg for sugar. Up to five kilograms of rice will also be provided, subject to allocations from the Ministry of Food.
To prevent irregularities, TCB dealers will be required to install CCTV cameras at their outlets and display price lists prominently. Beneficiary information will be stored in a central database through the TCB Seba app.
TCB will also sell essential commodities through mobile truck sales for the general public during Ramadan and Eid-ul-Azha.