PHOTO: AMRAN HOSSAIN

MD ASADUZ ZAMAN and SUKANTA HALDER

As dawn broke yesterday, Achhia Begum prepared again for her daily battle to buy essential goods at subsidised prices in order to save a few bucks and bear other family expenses.

She walked for about ten minutes in the bitter cold to reach the nearby Shialbari intersection in the capital’s Mirpur area, where the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) sells rice and flour at subsidised rates under its Open Market Sales (OMS) programme.

Suffering from complications related to her advanced age, she cut a frail figure as she tried to walk faster than usual, apprehensive that the line would be too long and goods would be sold out before her turn.

“It was quite cold in the morning. I arrived at the spot at about 7:00am. Nobody would stand in the queue so early on a cold morning if they were not in financial trouble,” the 75-year-old told The Daily Star yesterday.

For her efforts, Begum was rewarded with the 33rd position in the queue. Over the next 10 minutes, the line grew to at least 80 people.

Finally, after waiting in line for around three hours, she managed to buy products from the mobile shop.

This has become a common scene in Dhaka despite the fact that Bangladesh has produced increased quantities of rice in the last three crops season.

It is a testament to the struggle that hundreds of people, especially in urban areas, have faced in order to secure food for their families, with prices of essentials and costs of living spiraling beyond their means.

According to analysts, people from low and fixed-income groups experienced food insecurity due to a lack of access to food grains. They also blamed weak market mechanisms.

About 24 percent of Bangladesh’s population was food-insecure, a trend observed to be increasing since May this year, according to the latest World Food Programme (WFP) survey report in August 2023.

The WFP survey revealed that 47 percent of the food-insecure were in low-income households, nine percent in medium-income households, and less than three percent in high-income households.