Govt’s denial mood can’t alter the grim economic realities

Now we have figures, as revealed in a South Asian Network on Economic Modelling survey that indicate how hard the current food inflation has impacted the poor people of Bangladesh. The survey that was conducted during September 2022 to February 2023 when average household expenditure at the national level increased by 13 per cent reveals that 74 per cent of poor people were depending on borrowing from others for their survival.
 Conducting the nationwide survey among 1,600 households across the country’s eight divisions, the report found that 90.2 per cent poorer people were forced to change their regular food habits to cope with the inflation nationally. According to the report, of the 73.8 per cent poor people that depended on borrowing, 45.42 per cent received microcredit, 36.53 per cent financial support from their friends, relatives or neighbours, 22.63 per cent loan cooperative society and only 13.90 per cent received loan from the banking sector.
 Poor people were also relying on aid (35.4 per cent) and using their savings (35.4 per cent). More sadly, some 12.9 per cent were forced to sell their property and 4.2 percent became internal migrants to face the ongoing crisis.
 The SANEM report on ‘Effects of Inflation on the Livelihoods of the Poorer Households in Bangladesh’ also reveals that in the urban areas, households have compromised with their consumption quantity of food like rice, wheat, lentil, meat, fish, egg, oil and others in past six months and switched to low-quality food. Besides cutting foods, poorer families were also found reducing their non-food expenditure by about 61 per cent, children’s education expenses by 12.4 per cent, expenditure on house rent by 9.8 per cent.
 What did the other poor people do who could not borrow or had other means to survive? They certainly had two choices before them: one to spread hands becoming beggars or are forced to remain hungry.
 There is no hide and seek about the matter. The government may not agree with the grim reality that has come upon the poorer people because of massive corruption and mismanagement of the economic affairs, but its denial will not alter the hard economic facts on the ground.