The urban poor continue to go hungry

It is widely known that hunger is a regular feature for the urban poor that causes chronic malnutrition and consequently makes them vulnerable to diseases, thus affecting their overall well-being. Now, a Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics survey has quantified the level of hunger urban households must deal with. The study has found around 12 percent of households surveyed had no food at all in the house, with eight percent going to bed on an empty stomach and over 21 percent not being able to eat what they preferred. Conducted last year, some of the findings from this survey reveal the dire situation that many people in cities such as Dhaka and Chattogram face. And this was a pre-pandemic study—we can only imagine how much worse the situation is now because of joblessness caused by the sporadic shutdowns.

Many in the low-income groups had their incomes fall drastically, and others became unemployed and had no food stock during the 66-day countrywide shutdown that started on March 26. A Brac survey conducted during the first month of the lockdown found that 14 percent of people in low income groups did not have any food at home. Thus, food security for these people has decreased during this year, which is something the government must address on a priority basis.

The survey has also found that urban households spend as much as 51 percent of their total expenditure on food, followed by rent and healthcare costs, which are around 26 percent. Most households have no savings and completely rely on the incomes they earn. Dhaka city is notorious for the high rents that even the poorest urban families have to pay. While jobs have come back with easing of the lockdown, the urban poor are still suffering from hunger.

This is unacceptable for a country that has managed to keep food production at pace with its population growth. The government, in fact, has been able to ensure food production even during the pandemic as well as during the floods, when crops were destroyed. Yet despite such commendable efforts, there is a gap in the distribution of food, especially when it comes to the urban poor.

The government must identify these households and provide food relief or make cash payments to poor urban households who are finding it increasingly difficult to afford their daily food requirements. The authorities, however, must be extra vigilant about irregularities in such distribution, the evidence of which has been ample in the past months, especially in the case of rural households. A proper system of registering the names of such vulnerable families, making a list and distributing this relief according to it with vigorous monitoring, can bring some solace to the urban poor whose miseries have been exacerbated by the pandemic. There is also a need to have a comprehensive study, as the one done last year, on the state of hunger among the urban poor in the year 2020. These studies are extremely important for planning and policy-making, and assessing the real picture of poor households.