Food assistance for poor hampered
This year, the ultra poor are going to have a hard time. The many safety net programmes that involve low-cost food distribution are in a state of doldrums for a number of reasons. First, we suffered devastating floods. Then there were the twin issues of farmers being unable to sell their paddy to the rice mills on the one hand, and the delay in government procurement. To top it all, the authorities decided to import non-parboiled rice in the hope that poor people would buy it. Unfortunately, this rice went to waste as there were very few takers. The revised plan was to introduce this non-traditional rice into the social safety food programmes and that didn't work either.
Flash floods notwithstanding, we have gone from one blunder to another and today the poor are paying the price. The public food distribution system (PFDS) distributed 7.28 lakh tons of food during July-October last year. This year, this distribution has fallen by nearly half to 4.53 lakh tons. We simply do not have the food and one of the most important rice distribution programmes of the government, i.e. the Tk10 per kilo rice destined for the ultra-poor is yet to start. Due to low stocks, the authorities have been forced to curtail its programmes and raise the cost of rice at the same time.
While 3.8 lakh beneficiaries in the 6 flood-hit Haor districts will be buying rice at Tk30 per kilo till January 2018, the same is not true for a major portion of other flood affected people from the 34 districts which were also affected by the floods. All in all, an unmitigated mess! And the sad part is that there is no talk of holding those responsible to account for allowing government food stocks to dwindle and letting down millions of hardcore poor in the country.
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