The fixed income people bearing the brunt

Staff Reporter :
The fixed income people of the country are experiencing uphill pressure to maintain their families due to the sudden price hike of fuels and spiking inflation.
The low and the middle income groups of families said that every day they are compromising with their basic needs like foods, medicines, travel costs, house rents, etc. as their monthly income is failing to cover it.
They said that the upward trend of increasing all daily essentials and other services has badly affected them and they are failing to cope with this situation.
Meanwhile, the government has been telling that nobody is dying in hunger but people said that they are compromising with the nutrition and if such situation goes on, it will take a toll on their health in future.
Many of the city dwellers said their salary is not covering their basic needs and they cannot feed their children with nutritious foods, let alone meeting their recreational demands.
Some city dwellers said that they would not be able to stay in the capital amid this spiraling price of commodities and services. They will not have any other options but to return to their country home.
During a press conference organised by Centre for Policy Dialogue in the capital on Wednesday, the spokesperson of Jatri Kolyan Samity Mozammel Haque said that the transport fair of the middle income service holders has been increased from Tk2000 to Tk6000.
He said that they have found this picture after conducting a survey of the office-going passengers after the hike of fuel price and transport fare. They have carried out their observation in 28 bus counters and talked with the passengers whose salaries ranges from Tk3200 to maximum Tk30,000.
He also said that some 80 percent workers and labourers did not get transport fare with their salaries.
“The daily bus fare of the office goers has been increased from Tk 70 to Tk200. It means the monthly transport fare of a person is about Tk 2,100. If the person’s income is Tk3000, how will he/she survive?” Mozammel Haque questioned.
“During a conversion with a service holder, he said that his monthly income is Tk10,000. His wife also does a job. They live in a sub-let house. Now they have decided to return to their village because they transport costs have increased by Tk2100,” he said.
He alleged that the city services are not following the government fixed fare which is Tk 2.50 per kilometer but the city services are charging Tk3 to Tk7 per kilometer.
The spokesperson said that the State will ensure all kinds of opportunities but people were experiencing severe financial pressure due to the price hike of fuels and other services.
Though the government has increased the fuel price and not the gas price, but the CNG run auto-rickshaws are also charging high fare with the argument that the price of rice and other things have gone up, which has forced them to charge more.
Even the rickshaw-pullers are charging additional fare with the logic that they cannot run their families with the meager income due to high cost of all things.
He said the government should have control over the price hike considering the financial condition of the people.
However, the fixed income people said that they were always in fear for the price hike of all things and they don’t know how long they would be victorious in the uneven competition with the cost of living.