By The Numbers
Looking North
THE council of advisers at its meeting held on February 2 at Rangpur Circuit House gave a nod to the caretaker government's 14- point program in a bid for rapid socio-economic development of northern region of the country, especially Rangpur.
The programs include formation of a committee to resolve monga problem, setting up of a full-fledged university in Rangpur, activating the airports of the region, construction and maintenance of roads, railways, bridges and embankments, and taking measures to export more manpower from there.
The chief adviser has also announced an action plan to rid the country's northern region of monga forever through well-coordinated programs of the government, NGOs, and private sector, as the lean-season dearth of food and work put people in extreme misery.
Focusing on the ways of eradicating monga, the chief adviser said a committee headed by the commerce adviser was formed in the advisory council meeting in Rangpur that will co-ordinate all the ongoing projects for eradicating monga and poverty-alleviation aiming to formulate a multidimensional plan of action to eradicate monga permanently.
Putting emphasis on the cultivation of diversified food and other crops, the chief adviser suggested for undertaking income-generation projects and large scale export of manpower to foreign countries from the northern region through imparting training to them at various training centres and institutes in the country to offset monga.
A famine-like situation locally known as "monga" prevails every year in northern region of the country when millions of poor and landless people are compelled to starve due to a lack of jobs and a severe scarcity of food. Nearly 40 percent of the total population in the districts of Rangpur, Dinajpur, Nilphamari, Kurigram, Lalmonirhat, Panchagarh and Gaibandha are worst hit by this famine-like situation.
The monga, in fact, is a recurrent phenomenon in the northern region of the country, particularly in the greater Rangpur areas. This seasonal crisis of unemployment and food usually occurs during October-November period in the agrarian northern region, lacking in industries and other income-generating vocations.
Crisis of food owing to their having no purchasing power; thousands of families of zero income go destitute and literally live on whatever they can scrape off their surroundings. In fact, monga is a sort of famine that stalks the northern region of the country multiplying the sufferings of the chronically poor people every year during the lean period.
Crippled by poverty during the monga period, the destitute people of the greater Rangpur and Dinajpur region compelled to sell their labour in advance at the cheapest rate in their bid to keep their families from starving to death. The landless poor people sell their labour in advance, even at Tk 35 per day when the wage of a day-labourer is Tk 100 per day during the season of harvesting paddy or other farm activities.
Many poor people also borrow rice from the well-off persons on condition of repaying by working, as they become unemployed around this period of time every year. Those who sell their labour in advance do not get fair value of their wages and those who borrow money cannot earn a minimum living wage because they have to repay the money along with exorbitant interest. Thus nearly three million people of the greater Rangpur and Dinajpur region who are chronically poor are caught in such a cruel trap of poverty.
Many people also sell their domestic animals, household articles, and other belongings in order to combat monga situation. Those who have nothing to sell, flock to the upazila and district towns for any kind of jobs. The jobless poor people roam there in search of any type of works which are also scarce in the district and upazila towns of greater Rangpur and Dinajpur region.
Finally a huge number of these poor people migrate to the capital as the local economy is not sound enough to keep the locals in their own areas, providing them with any type of works during the lean period. Thousands of these destitute people are seen sleeping on the streets, bus terminals, rail stations and launch terminals in the capital.
Relief and issuance of VGF cards, chosen as an easy option, is not a solution of monga, which has become an annual curse for nearly three million people living in chronic poverty in the northern region of the country. But the successive governments had never thought of any other remedial measures beyond relief, for durable solution of monga situation which is the outcome of joblessness of the chronically poor people during the lean period.
In November 2003, a parliamentary committee recommended urgent steps for crop diversification in the monga-prone northern region to absorb agricultural labourers who become jobless during the lean period. But no effective steps have so far taken by the government on the basis of the recommendations made by the parliamentary body to combat monga on a durable basis.
The constitution of the country in Article 19(2) of the Fundamental Principles of State Policy states: "The State shall adopt effective measures to remove social and economic inequality between man and man and to ensure the equitable distribution of wealth among citizens, and of opportunities in order to attain a uniform level of economic development throughout the Republic."
The recent Household Integrated Economic Survey report prepared by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics with a view to highlight the extent of socioeconomic backwardness, revealed that Rajshahi division has the higher incidences of poverty (46%), compared to Chittagong division (34%), Dhaka division (32%), and Sylhet division (33%).
Though the constitution of the country has made it clear that, there must not be any disparity in the level of economic development in the regions of the republic, the northern region of the country is sadly experiencing it. Millions of people living in the northern region really felt cared for, as the council of advisers held a meeting there to expedite socio-economic development in the region.
The government should provide some direct incentives for setting up agro-based industries in the under-developed northern region. Infrastructure and other utilities must also be developed to encourage the private sector investment.
Budgetary allocation should also be enhanced for development projects in the northern region. Infusing dynamism in the local economy is a must to permanently end an endemic indigence like monga. In fact, the struggle for alleviating the misery of the poverty-stricken people of the northern region will never succeed without the strong commitment of the government.
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