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Monga hit people of northern district

21 November 2005, 18:00 PM
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
By Rezaul Huq Lalmatia, Dhaka
21 November 2005, 18:00 PM
Every year we see hundreds of poverty sticken people of the greater district of Rangpur throng the highways, nearest market places for food and cash money. In their colloquial they call it 'monga' which means without or having an insufficient quantify of food due to absence of employment. The situation is disquieting no doubt and newspaper column of every day are full of dissertations by the leaders of the society and political parties although no permanent solution has been pronounced. The government in the current year's budget has earmarked a sizeable amount for amelioration of financial hardship of marginalised people but nothing tangible has been reported. A good number of NGOs have been working in those areas only to lend money at usually high interest rate but failing to guide them as how to invest the fund resultant of which their purchasing power is diminished and coupled with recovery method applied by lender NGOs it is eventually pushing them into abject situation.

If propounded positively we see perpetual leadership vacuum in the area as all members of the parliament (mostly non-resident), local administration, civil society appear to be antiquated, keep distance from facing local problems but hyperactive to speak in a pompous style. October is a month when extra labour is not warranted in the cropland to take out weed, wild herbs provide irrigation etc resultant of which day labourers remain off the field. This situation applies to the entire country. People living in the islands of our southern coast who are highly vulnerable to our weather conditions could be cited as example as how have they adjusted themselves to the situation and during this period they produce plenty of green vegetables, fruits in the roadside land, open space, courtyard of their own homestead without resorting to any other means and they struggle for survival. Indolence is not a part of their life and they have learnt to survive against cyclone, tidal wave and other natural calamities.

To subvert the monga we all should be univocal in unambiguous voice calling upon community leaders, area members of the parliament, official of the ministry of both land and agriculture of the government, large NGOs, leaders of the civil society and agriculture experts of the country to come forward with their positive and brilliant ideas to guide the inhabitants of the affected areas for production of vegetables, fruits, egg, poultry etc in every inch of unutilised land and other labour intensive jobs.

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These steps if implemented in right earnest shall offset supply gap to arrest rising price every year this time and bring enough revenue for the grower owners as well as labourers and landless people of greater district of Rangpur.