The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

According to a recent World Bank report, the rate of poverty in the country dropped to 48.9 percent in 2005 from 40 pc in 2000 while the extreme poverty rate to 34.3 percent from 25.1 percent According to one statistics, people's per capita income is at present 485 dollar, marking a significant progress over the years.

As regard the definition of poverty, there are several opinions. One opinion suggests that a man is poor if he earns one dollar or less than that per day. The Islamic point of view is that a man could be called poor if his monthly income is less than expenditure of the month to which it relates.

The WB defines poverty on the basis of how much calorie of food does a man take per day. If a man takes 2122 calories of food or less than that per day, it will be taken that he lives under poverty line. And if a man takes 1805 calories of food or less than that per day, it will be taken that he lives under extreme poverty line.

But the costs of living have increased over the years. It is because prices of essentials have increased in last one year. T

The price of the coarse rice increased by minimum taka six in last one year; fine rice by taka 10 to 14; edible oil by taka 32 per liter; mustard oil by taka 65, coarse flour by taka 13, lentil by taka 32, mash by taka 40, onion by taka 14, beef by taka 40, muton by taka 60, potato by taka eight and green pepper by taka minimum 60. Not only prices of the essential commodities so mentioned increased, prices of other essentials too except papaw increased at an alarming rate.

It means that the success of the past government in reducing the poverty in the country has failed to bring comfort because of high prices of foodstuffs.

Surely the monthly income of a fourth class government employee or a agriculture day labor is under no way sufficient to meet the increased prices. The WB has reported that the number of the agriculture day labor has fallen from 43.6 pc to 36.3 pc. The reason thereof is obvious.

When a man becomes unable to maintain family with his income, he will be constrained to change his profession. The decrease of the agriculture day labor might leave an adverse impact on the agri-production in future, if not present, if the trend continues.

However, the rein of price-hike could be checked by building a counter market force as early as possible.