Charity To Ease Starvation

New year starts with soaring prices,
Causing household hardship and crises.
Stemming the price rise lies in preservation.
Charity may ease the problem of starvation.

The first week of new year was a bad week for Bangladeshi consumers. Key kitchen commodities registered high prices at the market. Middle class and lower middle class with shrinking income are finding it difficult to maintain family expenditures prevailed prior to COVID-19.

The queue of daily laborers is growing long in Dhaka. In my neighborhood, I met a gacchi(a person who cleans tall tree tops, fetches the fruit grown there, casts pot and collects juice of date-palm) who constantly implored my mother to hire him to clean the tree top of our coconut tree. The task might enable him to buy some rice that would sustain his family for couple of days.

Dhaka's green is receding fast. Many houses had tall trees. The sprawling apartment building boom requires optimization of space. The tall trees had to give in their space to apartment complex. Some are spared near roadside or boundary walls. The tall trees often pose risks to the residents as their proximity to the apartment building means thieves can easily break into houses closer to ground floor. Apartment buildings often hinder sunlight reaching the tall trees. So the tree and its canopy grows towards the side where there is ample of sunlight. This causes the tree having precarious shape and position. Whenever there is strong wind or storm , tree branch or sometimes the whole tree falls on pedestrians, cars or petty commerces and causes irreparable damage. Coconut tree , of course, remains as exception, like the interests of bureaucrats in any kind of turn of events , as their roots are widely spread. Only one or two coconuts and dead branches fall victim of storm. That is why we seldom read news report like a huge coconut tree got uprooted and destroyed cars in Dhaka.

The disappearing of tall trees engenders the profession of the gacchis. These village folks come all the way from remote corners and add up to the slum dwelling population of Dhaka. They are constantly in search of tall trees in Dhaka. Whenever they catch sight of one, they approach the owner for cleaning the tree in exchange for a bargained sum and part of the fruit or juice collected from the tree tops. Of course, like other professions, it has perks. The gacchi can retain dead branches, leaves and other unwanted staffs collected from the tree.

Dwindling number of tall trees and coconut trees lead them to switch to other professions. Hardship sustained by the gacchi is an indication how volatile the staple grain market is. Though winter vegetable market gives a relief (a kilo of bean is Tk 10 and a fair size cabbage is Tk 10), nothing matches to a smoking hot plate of rice when it comes to fill the stomach. At the grain market, inferior quality of coarse rice is being sold between Tk 45 and Tk 48 per kilo.

I read a news item that claimed many rice exporting countries like Viet Nam is importing rice from India causing the recent price hike in the international market.

I delved into news reports on prices of kitchen commodities and noticed that all essential items but onion show an increasing trend in prices.Cooking oil is being sold at Tk 107 per liter. Palm oil costs Tk 95 per liter.Cheapest source of protein,egg, is being sold at Tk 88 per dozen.TCB sells a kilo of lentils at Tk 50.

A typical household passes really hard times with the rise in prices of key commodities. What steals the show is the onion, which was sold at more than Tk 100 per kilo couple of weeks ago. As India lifts the ban on onion export from January 1, onion price drops at Tk 20 per kilo. According to a news report carried by a leading daily, 26000 metric tons of onion await at Chattogram port for clearance. Importers are reluctant to take delivery of their consignments as falling onion price inflicts losses on them. TCB also sustains loss as it has to import 70000 metric tons of onions from abroad.

I think Ministry of Agriculture should initiate a research program that will concentrate how to preserve agricultural goods. Most of our cold storages are engaged in storing potatoes. In addition, onions kept in cold storage got rotten quickly once they were out of storage. Could it be possible to make onion chips when it is sold cheap? Later, the onion chips/ dehydrated onions could be marketed when the price soars. At the household level, this kind of preserved or processed kitchen items may not become popular. But hotels, dormitories, seminaries, garrisons where big catering facilities are needed to feed hundreds or thousands of people, the onion chips or dehydrated onion could be used to prepare meal.

Similarly, we could dry many vegetables or agricultural commodities when they are abundant in one season and could reintroduce to consumers in another season when they are scarce. This could at least save hard earned money.

There is no denying lack of income earning opportunity pushes millions to starvation. In old days when rice was scarce, I heard many families lived on rice starch, which was thrown out once rice was cooked. It was also used to harden thin clothes. When I was a kid once I tasted it with butter , pepper and a pinch of salt. It tasted really good. But it never complements the desired calorie needed by a man. Point is one simply cannot live on rice starch.

Charitable activities are hard to find nowadays. In India and Pakistan, there are many charitable organizations who take the onus to feed the hungry people. These organizations feed hundreds of thousands people everyday. Unfortunately, such charitable organizations are conspicuously absent in Bangladesh. However, there is a campaign of feeding people in exchange of 1 taka , run by some philanthropic institutions. But its operations and reach are not as large as those in other South Asian countries.So starvation persists with daring growth of luxury. Feeding the hungry does not necessarily mean feeding biriyani/ khichuri 3 times of the day. Plain rice with a simple curry 1 time per day could at least resolve or ease the starvation problem. The super rich, corporate houses, professional bodies and individuals can step forward to finance their operations.

Starving population whose number continues to swell as pandemic's true damage becomes more visible does not get along well with the image of a middle income , doing-well economy. Since past policies of the government undermine social activities of NGOs and other voluntary organizations, responsibilities lie with the government to make sure that a great part of the have-not community do not go to bed with empty stomach.