How much money does one need to maintain a modest family ?
Thursday, 26 March 2009
THE security guards, those that are privately employed or through security agencies, work for an average salary of Tk 3000 per month. When you tell this to tenants or even the owners of the houses or flats (they are supposed to know this anyway) their insensitive reaction is something in the lines of: "Oh, those people can manage their lives with that money" or "They don't have to spend the kind of money we have to" or "The more you give the more they will spend" or even "Giving them more will spoil them and their efficiency level will come down!" In fact, one person even said that if we paid them more salary they would take us for fools!
A guard in my house, hired privately by the building authorities, gets Tk 3000 per month but considers himself lucky that he doesn't have a wife and family-he's fairly young-nor does he send any money home, doesn't need to because his elder brother takes care of that. Our guard spends Tk 1500 for food, board is free, and another Tk 500 for different expenditures. He saves the rest Tk 1000 with an elder sister because he doesn't understand how it is done with a bank. The other guard, an older man sells tea when he is not on duty.
But what of those who need to support a family? Could a family with a minimum of four members live on Tk 1000 even in the village when expenses can be less? Finally what about those people, like the guard who declared on television that he gets Tk 800 per month? For heaven’s sake, even a rickshaw puller makes more!
Saidur Rahman
Maghbazar
Dhaka
A guard in my house, hired privately by the building authorities, gets Tk 3000 per month but considers himself lucky that he doesn't have a wife and family-he's fairly young-nor does he send any money home, doesn't need to because his elder brother takes care of that. Our guard spends Tk 1500 for food, board is free, and another Tk 500 for different expenditures. He saves the rest Tk 1000 with an elder sister because he doesn't understand how it is done with a bank. The other guard, an older man sells tea when he is not on duty.
But what of those who need to support a family? Could a family with a minimum of four members live on Tk 1000 even in the village when expenses can be less? Finally what about those people, like the guard who declared on television that he gets Tk 800 per month? For heaven’s sake, even a rickshaw puller makes more!
Saidur Rahman
Maghbazar
Dhaka