Food budget to be 16pc bigger (Daily Star)  

Daily Star (Bangladesh) published an article on the government’s plan to buy food grains to shield the poor against hunger amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Senior Research Fellow and country representative in Bangladesh, Akhter Ahmed said the government should focus more on providing food for free instead of selling foodgrains at subsidized rates. This is because programs like OMS and FFP are prone to corruption and a lot of administrative costs are involved. Scope for leakage is low in free distribution and it is not possible for many to buy rice. Allocation for free food distribution programs should be increased as much as possible.”