BDR personnel dismantle a fair price shop at Moghbazar in the city yesterday as they begin wrapping up all such outlets in the country by September 28.Photo: STAR

The Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) officially announced yesterday the wrapping up of its 'Operation Dal Bhat' programme after running it for over one and a half year though the sale will continue across the country till September 28.
The BDR announced this at a press briefing at its headquarter at Pilkhana in the city where they also held a view-exchange meeting with the journalists yesterday afternoon.
“We are officially announcing closure of the 'Operation Dal Bhat' today but the sale at the fair price outlets will continue till September 28,” said BDR Dhaka Sector Commander Col Mujibul Huq at the briefing.
He, also a taskforce commander, said the main target of the operation was to provide essential commodities to the low-income group people at reasonable prices and they had served on an average 1 lakh city dwellers each day. They worked six days in a week, he added.
They have sold about 1.30 lakh tonnes of rice since the operation was launched, he said, adding that 2000 tonnes of pulses and 3500 tonnes of edible oil had been sold at the outlets across the country.
They have sold essential commodities worth about Tk 400 crore in the past one and a half year.
The BDR Sector Commander, however, urged the government to strengthen the market monitoring system to check the trend of price hike of essentials.
He suggested introducing cooperative markets in upazila, zila and city (if necessary) levels where the farmers can sell their goods directly.
“The main responsibility of the BDR is to ensure border security and we will attach priority to this effect,” he said, adding, BDR feels no necessity to run the outlets as the prices of essentials have already begun to plummet in the markets across the country.
The income and expenditure from the outlets are equal as the money they had earned by selling commodities was spent on construction of the outlets and transportation, he said.
Col Mujibul said they had to run their outlets being haunted by loss and amid inadequate storage and wastage of commodities. “We have been able to create a positive impact on the market through the fair price outlets”, he boasted.
He said that BDR asked the Dhaka City Corporation to take responsibility of the open markets in the city, which are also running under the project of the 'Operation Dal Bhat'.
The BDR, however, was yet to take any decision regarding the BDR shops in the city, as these shops are not running under the operation, he said.
Visiting different outlets in the capital, The Daily Star found that BDR members had already removed some portions of their outlets as a preparation to round off their outlets.