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Price hike and poor management
The majority of people of our country are very poor. Their living standards and lifestyles are of very poor quality due to low income, under employment and unemployment. The ever increasing price hike of commodities has affected the lower, middle and fixed income groups, severely aggravated their condition and prolonged their indescribable sufferings and pangs from starvation. The prices of foods and other essentials have more than doubled in a year and gone beyond the purchasing capacity and affordability of the majority of the people. The people are to spend more than 70 percent of their daily income only for food purchase. The skyrocketing prices of essentials have pushed about 60 percent people of the country under the poverty line. Eight lakh school teachers have demanded food rationing. The school-going children are seen stand-
ficient action against hoarders, inefficiency of the government in dealing with the business syndicates and imprudent policies keep the prices going up. The indiscreet and irresponsible speeches and knee-jerk reactions of the honourable advisers ('We have nothing to do with price hike'-- Tapan Chowdhury, 'Expecting price fall is unrealistic'-- Mirza Aziz) have apparently reflected their failure and consequently emboldened the business syndicates to increase the prices of essentials. Though the record-breaking increase in fuel price and bio-fuel production from foods by the rich nations are mainly responsible for food inflation and price spiral of essentials worldwide, our government could have kept the prices of commodities much lower and within people's purchasing capacity and
ing in the long queues of BDR run shops during school time. We cannot forget the mad rush of the poor people to the BDR run shops from the early morning to buy rice at reasonable price. The exorbitant increase in prices of commodities has resulted in reduction of daily calorie intake and of baby food consumption, ingestion of sub-standard foods and starvation in the extremely poor families are causing serious malnutrition and ill-health. The bulk of the people are struggling to enhance their purchasing capacity and affordability to cope with the prices of foods and other essentials.
The government had time and again assured the people that the price of rice would fall after the boro harvest. But, the bumper boro harvest could not arrest the upward trend of rice price. Inadequate market monitoring and regulating, insuf-
affordability, if it were prudent and efficientenough.
To extenuate the magnitude of chronic poverty, the government should conduct sufficient economic activities for the enhancement of people's income, generate employment, expand social safety-net programme, reintroduce food rationing system in limited scale, launch food for work programmes, provide the farmers with modern agricultural equipments and proper training to use them, provide agricultural inputs in subsidised rates and ensure availability of fertilisers to achieve food autarky. The government should also conduct a drive against hoarders who create artificial crisis in the market.
Alamin Al Azad
Zahurul Haque Hall
Dhaka University