Anisul Islam Noor :
The middle class feels the squeeze at rising cost of living despite the country’s record 7.28 percent economic growth, increased revenue collection and high foreign currency reserves, experts said.
They added, the house rent hike, along with massive increases in commodity prices, electricity, gas, water bills and other essentials have adversely affected the lives of most city dwellers, particularly the lower-income group of people, they said.
According to the Consumer Association of Bangladesh (CAB), the cost of living for Dhaka residents went record high in the last 11 years, from 2006 to 2017.
Several estimates reveal that tenants are spending around 35 percent to 50 percent or more of their income to pay house rent and other utility bills.
Talking with The New Nation, Professor Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir, Dhaka University’s Development Studies Department, said, if the actual labour wages and inflation rose simultaneously, it would not have been a matter of concern. Higher food prices and lower income eventually lead to malnutrition, starvation and physical complications, which in turn are severely affecting the working class families, said Titumir, who is also the chairman of multidisciplinary think tank Unnayan Onneshan.
Prof Rashed also added that the production cost has risen exponentially, as the government did not act on time, nor did it take timely steps such as reducing the tariff and launching OMS sales to tackle the food shortage.
However, former governor Mohammed Farashuddin described the outgoing year’s economy ‘good on the whole’.
“The GDP had grown by over 7 percent for two years, economic indicators are doing well, the Padma Bridge construction is going ahead and the power generation has increased, which are all good things, Bangladesh will march at double speed in 2018,” said Farashuddin, who headed the central bank between 1998 and 2001.
But its benefits are yet to reach the public, said Farashuddin, underscoring the need to address inequality.
Soaring rice prices, however, left mid- and low-income groups in trouble, said Ahsan H Mansur, Economist and Executive Director of private think-tank Policy Research Institute. “The government failed to handle it efficiently,” he said. The 2017-18 budget targeted to peg inflation within 5.5 percent, but by late 2017, it began to rise and is now over 6 percent. Point-to-point inflation rose to 6.4 percent in October this year.
“Rice prices rose unexpectedly as the government was late to take import initiatives as well as to cut duty. The prices are still going up,” said Mansur.
Coarse rice is sold for Tk 35 a kilogram now from Tk 50 in the beginning of the year. Finer varieties cost between Tk 60 and 80, up from Tk 42.
