333 helpline remains elusive for poor

Mariam Begum is a single mother and she is in deep trouble with her two kids as she lost her domestic help job because of the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic and she does not have food to survive.

Mariam, also an abandoned wife, does not have cash in her hand to buy some daily essentials to feed her kids. She used to work in an apartment at Shantinagar in the city.

She was sprinting around Shantinagar vicinity to find a generous man or woman who could donate her Tk 60 or so that she needed to buy some rice. “All I need is Tk 60, so that I can buy one kilogram of (coarse) rice for my children,” she told Business Insider Bangladesh, on Monday.

She does not know how to ring 333 and ask for food from the government’s relief programme. She said she was worried about paying her landlord Tk 3,000 in unpaid room rent, too.

Like Mariam, thousands of poor people in the Dhaka city are facing the same hardship.

The government enforced a stricter version of nationwide lockdown amid a quick rise in Coronavirus infection and death on July 1. The restriction was first meant for a week but later was extended to 14 days.

The government, however, has not yet started any free food programmes for the poor who are unable to call the government-designated helpline number. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the last cabinet meeting had asked the State Minister for Disaster Management, Dr Enamul Rahman, to distribute necessary food among the poor of the major cities.

An ‘a2i’ project’s media outreach consultant said there were more than 19 lakh phone calls asking for Tk 500 food support during June 25 to July 5.

State Minister for Disaster Management Dr Enamul Rahman said, “We have supplied food stuff as per the demand placed by the respective Deputy Commissioners of various districts.”

Md Mohsin, secretary to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief said some 59,164 people have been waiting to receive Tk-500 food rations.

He said his ministry has already disbursed Tk 23.06 crore for indigent people across 64 districts and that some 23,630 metric tonnes of rice (costing Tk 11.70 crore) will be distributed soon across the country.

A recent report of South Asian Network on Economic Modeling revealed that the country’s poverty rose to 42 percent from the previous 22 percent amid the pandemic. More than 2.45 crore people are now living below the poverty line, said the report.

Food secretary Dr Mosammat Nazmanara Khanum told the Business Insider Bangladesh on Wednesday that the government has enough food in the country to face any acute crisis because of the pandemic.

She said: “Food ministry does not distribute rice and wheat for free. We just supply food grains to other ministries and divisions as per their requirement.”

Usually, the food ministry runs a special rice selling programme at Tk 10 for a kilogram during August to September, she said.

“We had taken a similar Khaddo Bandhab (food friendly) programme during the last lockdown enforced in March last year with the permission of our Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina,” she noted.

Meanwhile, economist Reza Kibria has dubbed the government relief programme ‘a little drop of water in the ocean.’

He said jobless people in the cities are desperately looking for cheaper food during the lockdown.

“Even the people of the middle class need food for their survival,” he said.

The government needs a large relief programme at a cost of Tk 35,000 crore for low income people across the country for next three months, he added.

The country’s food stock on July 7 stood at 14.67 lakh tonnes up by 3 lakh tonnes from 2020. Of that sum, rice comprised 11.71 lakh tonnes and the rest was wheat, according to data provided by the Food Planning and Monitoring Unit of the food ministry.