MD SHAHNAWAZ KHAN CHANDAN and SHAHEEN MOLLAH

Purchasing power of factory workers in the capital and its outskirts has fallen sharply amid surging inflation.

As prices of essentials soar, the workers are forced to buy less and dip into savings to support everyday expenditure.

Moreover, the workers who used to get paid for working overtime are seeing their monthly earnings shrink because small garment factories and other industrial units are producing less due to frequent power outages.

“I used to earn around Tk 12,000 a month with the overtime. We rely heavily on overtime. But due to load-shedding, we have to pause our production for several hours every day. And there is no overtime,” said Sharif, a garment factory worker in Gazipur.

He added that his monthly earning has been around Tk 9,000 for the last three months.

“I have stopped buying almost all the non-essential items and am still finding it hard to make ends meet,” said the man in his early 30s.

His sister Sumaiya Begum and her daughter live with him in his shanty in Kashimpur area of Gazipur city.

“We recently stopped having breakfast. We take the day’s first meal at lunch. I used to give my daughter a glass of milk or an egg every two days. Now, we do this once a week at most. We have also reduced buying medicines for our ailing mother,” she told The Daily Star.

Similar stories of hardship were heard from many industry workers.

HUNGER AND UNCERTAIN FUTURE

Kod Banu, cleaner of a printing mill in the capital’s Tejgaon, saw her monthly income drop by Tk 1,500 because her employers have been closing the factory early since July.

“I get Tk 8,000 a month. I used to earn an additional Tk 1,500 by working till 8:00pm. But now my factory closes at 4:00pm,” she said.