KHULNA, Jun 11: The city-dwellers in Khulna have been witnessing long queue here everyday in front of the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh's (TCB) trucks as the state-owned body started selling essentials in open market ahead of holy Ramadan since June 4.
TCB is now selling four commodities - edible oil, sugar, gram and pulse (lentil) - at 11 points in different parts of the city aiming at keeping the prices of essentials stable during the holy month.
The points where TCB items are being sold are Court and Bangladesh Bank intersection, Shantdham point, Moylapota area, Rupsha Ferry Ghat area, Newmarket Bazar area, Zoragate intersection, Dawkbangla more area, Chitrali Bazar, Daulatpur Bazar, Khanjahan Ali Bazar and Sonadanga Bus Terminal area.  A total of 119 dealers were appointed in the city and districts in this regard.
Meanwhile, ahead of the holy month, unscrupulous traders have hiked the prices of essentials in retail markets. Ibrahim Howlader, an employee of city's Modhumoty Mudranaloy told this correspondent on Wednesday that this is a good initiative taken by TCB for the common people.
"Some greedy businessmen have started doing malpractice to bag lofty profit by creating artificial crisis ahead of Ramadan," he alleged.
While visiting different points in the city, this correspondent found huge numbers of people were purchasing TCB commodities from the trucks. TCB dealers were selling sugar at Tk 37 per kg, pulse Tk 103 per kg, gram Tk 53 per kg and edible oil (Soyabeen) Tk 88 per litre. Every person would purchase 3 kgs of gram, five liters of edible oil, 5 kgs of sugar and 2kgs of pulse, said Khulna regional office chief of TCB Robiul Morshed.
He said, "We have adequate stock of goods and selling will continue till Eid-ul-Fitr." TCB will start selling dates just before Ramadan, he said, adding that the market price of the essentials will remain stable in the wake of selling TCB goods.