The poor getting badly battered by higher prices
Friday, 26 November 2010
M A Quasem
When some 60 million people or 40 per cent of the country's population are considered to be living below the poverty line, one may get an idea of how agonizing the costs of living have become for such people from the doubled or trebled prices of the basic foods they need to survive. For example, the price of even coarse rice has shot up by some 43.48 per cent in the span of only one year and that of 'ata' (flour) by 53 per cent.
The cereals are very central to the subsistence of the poor. When they have to absorb such high price escalations of the basic foods in such a short time when their incomes in most cases are not rising any or significantly, then the hardships caused require not much imagination to realize.
And not only rice, prices of all other indispensable edibles such as soybean oil, palm oil, masur pulse, sugar, ginger, broiler chicken, etc., have continued to rise without a pause. An estimate from the government's own Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) stated that between 2006 and October, 2010, the price of coarse rice increased cumulatively by as much as 35 per cent, soyabean oil by 92 per cent, palm oil 85 per cent, masur pulse 105 per cent, sugar 54 per cent, ginger 170 per cent and boiler chicken 145 per cent. The list does not include many other foodstuffs and the charges of many other services and rents which have also soared like the above. Understandably, the common consumers are at their wit's ends about how to survive under the ceaseless rise in the costs of living.
Price normalization was an extraordinarily high point or pledge in the ruling party's election manifesto. It was pledged that price syndicates would be smashed; market monitoring would be strengthened; all factors such as extortion, toll collection, etc., with bearing on prices would be controlled ; production and supplies would be increased ; and, an authority would be created to control prices .
But all these now sound like sick jokes probably to the badly suffering people. Government needs to move urgently and effectively to show that it cares any for their suffering.
When some 60 million people or 40 per cent of the country's population are considered to be living below the poverty line, one may get an idea of how agonizing the costs of living have become for such people from the doubled or trebled prices of the basic foods they need to survive. For example, the price of even coarse rice has shot up by some 43.48 per cent in the span of only one year and that of 'ata' (flour) by 53 per cent.
The cereals are very central to the subsistence of the poor. When they have to absorb such high price escalations of the basic foods in such a short time when their incomes in most cases are not rising any or significantly, then the hardships caused require not much imagination to realize.
And not only rice, prices of all other indispensable edibles such as soybean oil, palm oil, masur pulse, sugar, ginger, broiler chicken, etc., have continued to rise without a pause. An estimate from the government's own Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) stated that between 2006 and October, 2010, the price of coarse rice increased cumulatively by as much as 35 per cent, soyabean oil by 92 per cent, palm oil 85 per cent, masur pulse 105 per cent, sugar 54 per cent, ginger 170 per cent and boiler chicken 145 per cent. The list does not include many other foodstuffs and the charges of many other services and rents which have also soared like the above. Understandably, the common consumers are at their wit's ends about how to survive under the ceaseless rise in the costs of living.
Price normalization was an extraordinarily high point or pledge in the ruling party's election manifesto. It was pledged that price syndicates would be smashed; market monitoring would be strengthened; all factors such as extortion, toll collection, etc., with bearing on prices would be controlled ; production and supplies would be increased ; and, an authority would be created to control prices .
But all these now sound like sick jokes probably to the badly suffering people. Government needs to move urgently and effectively to show that it cares any for their suffering.