11/16/2016
CR Shahin is Bangladeshi and Proud About It.
Born and raised in Bangladesh.
Poverty in Bangladesh is a puzzling matter. While one segment keeps on accumulating masses of wealth and builds luxurious homes and buys BMW and Mercedes cars, people belonging to the lower echelons of the society doesn't even know whether he will get his next meal or not.
The path to poverty eradication is a thorny one, and needs both short term and long term measures. I will try to touch on a few things that are so obvious that they should be implemented right now.
1. Banning strikes/Hartals/Bandhs.
Due to turbulent political situation, every other day some party or a group with vested interest calls for a strike. The number of strikes increases at the peak of a government's tenure (the 5th year). Right now we are going through this phase where we can hardly spend a week without experiencing a strike. The impact of strikes on poor people is simply devastating.
Most of these poor people are dependent on daily wages, and a strike means a day without work and pay, which causes misery. Despite of the risks, these people often come out to work during strikes and becomes the victims of random acts of violence.
Also, having a "Hartal" day causes the nation million dollars of lost opportunities, as factories cannot produce, people cannot go to work (safely, so there's is less attendance), shops, schools remain closed, and in a nutshell, the whole nation goes in to hiatus and lethargic mood. Sometimes, at takes a long time to pick up productivity after a series of hartals take place.
It is of no doubt that banning hartals will improve the overall economic outlook.
2. Decentralization of economic activity.
Right now, there is huge pressure on Dhaka city as most of the big businesses and sources of income lies within the capital city. Due to the heavy daily inflow of people in to the city, more people are fighting for the same resources and this is making everyone poorer by the second.
Instead of enhanced focus on Dhaka, as well as few other divisional headquarters, more focus should be given in rural areas for job creation. All the garments factories should be forced to relocate outside the cities so people from villages can work there instead of coming to the cities.
As more cities, districts and villages will flourish, automatically the poverty levels will go down.
3. Discouraging non-contributing economic activities.
Thousands of people come to Dhaka in order to drive three wheeled human haulers called "Rickshaws". One does not need any skill, training or qualification to drive a rickshaw--they only need a level of physical prowess to do it.
However, these rickshaw pullers never get rich, nor can they change their lives by adopting this profession. The sons of a rickshaw puller has high likelihood of following their father's footstep, and thus the poverty cycle moves on from generation to generation.
As it's a steady income activity, many village people often sell their land and property to come to Dhaka and buy a rickshaw.
The rickshaw pullers are also the primary reason behind the heavy traffic congestion in Dhaka. In order to combat this issue, the number of rickshaws entering the city should be limited, and as a whole, this profession should be discouraged by imposing different ways and means.
The same can said about begging, which, surprisingly is a rewarding job!
4. Reward for Education
Well, education has no alternatives. The government has already taken a number of steps to educate the poor ones like giving free books up to class 12 for girls and 8 for boys, and the fees are often waived or are at minimal levels for the needy. However, this doesn't seem to be enough as lot of families prefer to send their young ones to work (to get some additional money) instead of sending them to school.
In order to ensure children's participation in schools, families should be rewarded. There could be a government stipend for the families whom send all their children to school.
5. Taking the Micro Credit Scheme more Seriously
While the whole world is embracing the micro credit scheme of Muhammad Yunus, our government seems to shy away from the tools he has developed for his own countrymen. Dr. Yunus's micro credit scheme is now a well established too for poverty eradication, and for this invention, he has received almost every known accolade (including the Noble prize) for his research and accomplishments.
He has time to time expressed his intention to work closely with the government to work in poverty elimination, but the government bodies never responded well, and thus a source of pride and a national asset remains mostly under appreciated at home, while being celebrated abroad.
I am sure adopting these immediate steps can be a good starting point for us.
