Monga

Thousands of people are spending hours together in hundreds of markets in the major cities of the country every day. It is difficult to imagine how much in total we are going to spend to get the desirable dress for ourselves; after all it's Eid, money doesn't matter.

In an unfortunate contrast of fate, about five million families in the northern region of the country can't think of observing Eid even as an ordinary day. The month of Ramadan has not meant anything different for them since they can hardly manage food thrice a day. Nature has dashed all their hopes with a flood. And dilly-dallying by the state in taking adequate steps to fight monga has added to their misery.

So far no government has taken adequate measures to eradicate monga. No long term planning has ever been chalked out to save those people from this routine famine.

But if we want we can help to save millions of lives in the north. What goes wrong if we buy only one new dress, instead of four or five, or do not buy anything at all and donate the money for those hungry people. That is not going to put a shadow on our Eid celebrations, rather it is going to make our Eid more meaningful.

From the newspaper report it has been learnt that Tk 50 crore is being sanctioned for the monga affected people. That is good news, but the ruling party leaders appear to be too busy to reap benefits from the government decision. Another matter of grave concern is distribution of the money.

The government should address the issue in right earnest and help the affected people overcome the crisis.

Mohammad Hasan On e-mail