The New Nation - Internet Edition

The Advisory Committee on Law and Order at its meeting last week with the Adviser for Law and Information in the chair directed law enforcing agencies to remain alert so that prices of essentials do not go up due to law and order problems.

The committee, according to press reports, ordered law enforcing agencies to monitor the prices of essentials commodities and keep the market stable and to remain alert about illegal collection of toll on essential goods.

The meeting was informed that stock of fertiliser is sufficient in the country. Law enforcers were asked to monitor smooth distribution of fertiliser.

Meanwhile, the Advisory Committee on Public Purchase approved food and fertiliser procurement proposals placed by the ministries. The Food Directorate under the Food Ministry will procure about 118,000 metric tonnes of rice from suppliers, while the state-owned Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC) will import about 374,500 metric tonnes of urea and other fertilisers. The move is meant to meet a growing demand for the essential items for farmers and the average man as the market remained overheated.

The two committees, in fact, dwelt on the most burning issues of the moment. Prices of some items like rice, wheat, pulses and oil are galloping and this is making the life of ordinary people miserable. Farmers need an urgent supply of fertilisers to grow new crops without which prices would not stabilise.

A handful of essentials which are becoming increasingly dearer should be made affordable to the people and there should be no logic to avoid this responsibility.

Farmers, on the other hand, need fertilisers on an urgent basis to grow fresh crops and this would mean increasing the supply of essentials. They are very tolerant and peaceful and are always happy with timely supply of these inputs that they urgently need at reasonable prices.

The government has taken a number of steps to streamline business activities by helping reactivate big business houses and has released some business tycoons charged with corruption to help the process. But all such steps would become meaningless and all achievements of the government would fall flat if the government cannot make life easy for the people whatever may be the costs.

It should be remembered by all concerned that the country is now passing through an extraordinary situation in so far as prices and the supply of some essentials and fertilisers are concerned. Although price hike at the international markets and two consecutive waves of recent floods are important contributory factors, neither the people would benefit nor the government would be able to make an excuse by citing those. The extraordinary situation calls for extraordinary solutions.

Economic planners always in the past took note of the fact that in an economy where a substantial proportion of the expenditure incurred by families in the low income ranges is on foodgrains, reasonable stability of foodgrains prices is of vital importance. The experience in this field over the last decade and more has shown clearly that this is a field in which neither complete control nor complete decontrol are feasible. Government must always be in a position to regulate effectively the course of foodgrains prices.

The government of the neighbouring Indian State of West Bengal still maintains a chain of ration shops run by government-appointed dealers - a system which was there in Bangladesh till the early eighties - for the supply of some essentials at fair prices. In Bangladesh, even the TCB has been kept inactive since the adoption of open market policy by the two major political parties since the early 1990s. Thus, the government now has limited systematic arrangement for effective intervention such as open market sale of rice which has no institutional base.

Since an early end to the price hike of a handful but extremely essential items is not in sight, the government may appoint a network of ration shops all over the country for their distribution at prices which are affordable for the masses. This is most urgent as some people are already expressing fears that the situation might become extremely difficult to tackle if some arrangement is not in place right now. Important achievements like control of corruption, separation of judiciary, roadmap to a free and fair election might be forgotten if the people do not find their life easy to lead.