In the bustling area of Mirpur-10 in the capital, over 300 people gathered early Monday morning, hoping to buy subsidised essentialsthat serve as a lifeline for low-income families.

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 budget is only an account of the government's income and expenditure, one can’t expect it to make any fundamental changes to the economic structure.

While the queue of people behind open market sale (OMS) trucks of the food ministry continues to remain fairly long, food grain distribution by the ministry was said to have dropped 19 per cent year-on-year in the first four months of the current fiscal year. 

OMS rice sale at subsidised prices will bring some relief to the poor

With rice prices soaring across the country, the government yesterday made a rather delayed intervention in the form of distribution of