Economic Reporter :
Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) will now use e-commerce to take four of its fair-value products — edible oil, chickpeas, sugar, and pulses — to middle-income consumers during the month of Ramadan.
Organised by the e-CAB in collaboration with the Ministry of Commerce and TCB, eight business institutions under digitalhaat.net began selling these four products of TCB online from Monday. This will continue till May 6.
Under this initiative, edible oil is being sold at Tk 108 per litre and sugar, chickpeas and pulses at Tk 58 per kilogram each.
A buyer will get the opportunity to purchase a maximum of five litres of oil and three kg of sugar, chickpeas and pulses, each, every week. A maximum delivery charge of Tk 30 will be added for deliveries inside the Dhaka city and Tk 40 for outside Dhaka.
Sales of these products under the initiative titled ‘Shop easy from home during Ramadan’ have initially started in Dhaka, Tangail and Sirajganj districts.
Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi said that TCB has been delivering necessities to low-income people through its truck-sale programme all over the country.
“The government has now taken the e-commerce delivery initiative so that the middle-class group is not deprived of such benefits,” he said.
He made the remarks on Monday during his speech as the chief guest at the inaugural function of the initiative.
Highlighting the success in selling onions and mangoes through e-commerce in the previous years, the minister said overall trade worth about Tk 16,000 crore was conducted online last year.
“The government has taken necessary steps to increase the efficiency of the workforce engaged in e-commerce to ensure transparency and accountability so that people are not deceived shopping online and can enjoy the benefits of e-commerce at home,” he added.
