Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) has cancelled the licenses of 13 companies and banned their product sale, distribution and preservation until further directions as those products found below standard in laboratory tests. Besides, the companies will not be allowed to publish advertisement for those products. The information was delivered through a notice signed by BSTI Director Engineer Sajjadul Bari on Monday. Order was given to refrain from sale, distribution, preservation and commercial advertisement of the products until new licenses are obtained. Of the 13 companies there are: Fortified soyabean oil Shakti of Shakti Edible Pvt. Ltd., iodized salt of Bismillah Salt Factory, iodized salt Nazrul of Janata Salt Mill, Madina Lachchha Semai of JK Food Products, Skin cream Modern of Modern Cosmetics and Herbal Industries, skin cream GM of GM Chemical Works, Arabean Special Ghee of New Chattrala Pvt. Ltd., Reven Lachchha Semai of Reven Food Company, Khajana semai, ghee and chanachur of Khajana Mithai Ltd., Prome turmeric powder of Prome Agro Food Ltd. and iodized salt Ifad of Ifad Salt and Chemical Ltd.  AH     

State-owned Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) will sell onion at Tk 35 per kilogram from tomorrow. TCB spokesman Humayun Kabir on Sunday said they decided to reduce the price after observing the market situation. “Each kg onion will be sold at Tk 35 from Monday from trucks until further announcement. We used to sell the imported bulb at Tk 45 in the capital to control its prices,” he said. According to TCB market observation, each kg imported onion was being sold at Tk 60-120 and the local variety at Tk 90-110 on Sunday. Onion prices started surging after India banned its export on September 29 for “improving domestic availability”. The supply crunch pushed up the price of the common kitchen item by as much as 557.8 percent year-on-year rise, according to TCB. The price started coming down in recent weeks after imported onion and the local varieties hit the market. Source: UNB AH

National Board of Revenue (NBR) Chairman Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan said, to realize Value Added Tax (VAT) the work of installing Electronic Fiscal Device (EFD) in every shop will begin from the current month. He said this at a press conference held at National Revenue Building at Segun Bagicha in the capital on Sunday on the occasion of national VAT day and VAT week. The NBR Chairman said, our EFD machines have reached at the Chattogram port. Those will be cleared from the port by today. The work of installing the machines in the shops will begin from the month of December. He said, at first 10 thousand machines will be given. These machines will be installed in 50 percent business organizations within the current fiscal year. The NBR Chairman also said, if the 10 thousand machines work properly then rest 90 thousand machines will be installed. After that further one lakh machines will be bought. In the current fiscal year a Chinese consortium was given the work order of supply, set up and operation for one lakh machines. The price of each EFD machine will be 32 thousand taka which will be given by the government to the businessmen through installments. AH

The food ministry has formed three monitoring committees and opened a control room to control rice market in the capital. On Sunday, Sumon Mehedi, the Information Officer of the ministry said, the food ministry has taken several immediate steps including meeting with the rice traders and mill owners as soon as rice prices soared. For this reason the market has come down stable. He said, to continue this trend three monitoring committees were formed and one control room was opened. The general people can inform their problems by making phone calls to the control room. In this regard a food ministry notice said, the control room has been opened to prevent soaring tendency of the prices of food grains in the market, to help low income people and to keep the market stable.  The notice also requested people to dial phone number 02-9540027 and mobile phone number 01642-967727 to the control room to provide overall information, opinion and complain. In the order of market price monitoring committee it was said, the committees were formed to collect the market prices after monitoring the major wholesale markets of the capital and for submitting those to the food ministry and food directorate. AH    

Bangladesh Power Development Board (PDB) has proposed to increase power price by 23.27 percent at wholesale rate. In response to this the technical evaluation committee of the commission said about necessity of increasing the price by 19.50 percent. The proposal was tabled at Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) at the public hearing on electricity price increase held at TCB auditorium in the capital on Thursday. PDB General Manager Kawsar Amir Ali presented the proposal. On the other hand Deputy Director (Tarrif) Md. Kamruzzaman of BERC presented the proposal for evaluation committee. Commission Chairman and members, representatives of political parties and business organizations were present in the hearing. Earlier, public hearing was held on changing the wholesale rate proposed by PDB till 1 pm. Later hearing was held on transmission rate changing proposed by Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB). On December 1 public hearing will begin over proposed price by the distribution companies about increasing price of electricity at the subscriber level. AH