New policy limits OMS dealers’ tenure to 5 years

In a bid to run food distribution endeavours smoothly, the interim government has framed a new policy for the open market sale (OMS) programme, which restricts the tenure of dealers to five years.

The food ministry announced the fresh policy, titled "OMS Policy 2024", this week.

The OMS programme is a public food distribution system under which the government sells rice and flour at subsidised rates through authorised dealers and trucks across the country.

The food ministry implements the OMS programme to alleviate the economic burden on vulnerable segments of the population. The programme also serves to stabilise food prices during periods of market volatility.

"The tenure of the dealers' licence will be limited to five years. They must renew it each year by paying a fee," according to the new policy.

Every dealer must stock a warehouse with at least three tonnes of food grains, it said. Earlier, under the OMS policy of 2015, only two tonnes were required.

"The government has re-framed the policy and limited the dealer's tenure to bring transparency to the food distribution process," said Md Habibur Rahman Hosaini, additional secretary of the procurement and supply wing at the food ministry.

"There is now no scope to retain dealership privileges for years. All of them will be brought under the proper monitoring," he added.

Under the new policy, the government has also strengthened the selection committee, he added.

Now, the director general of the food ministry will finalise the recruitment of the dealers.

It also scrapped a provision that prioritised local members of parliament in the dealer recruitment process.

Besides, the government has doubled the refundable collateral fee to Tk 50,000 and included penalties on dealers for missing deadlines.

In addition, the government clarified provisions relating to the cancellation of dealers' contracts and outlined legal action against them for violating the agreement.

From now, the dealership agreement will be cancelled if any dealer fails to withdraw their food grains from the government for 15 straight days.

The authorities have also extended the monitoring and reporting period.

The government distributed 2.92 lakh tonnes of food grains, including 1.94 lakh tonnes of rice, through the OMS programme during the July-September period of 2024-25 fiscal year, indicating an over 20 percent rise year-on-year, according to the food ministry.