Mismanagement hampers rice OMS in Dhaka

The government is still busy verifying who is destitute enough to get its ration cards while many street corners in Dhaka are literally filled with people begging for help to get something to eat.

As many as 90 of the 129 ward councillors in two Dhaka city corporations sent lists of destitute people to Dhaka Rationing Office since the prime minister nearly three weeks ago has ordered to issue 50 lakh emergency ration cards for people not covered by regular social safety net.

The office so far could finalize lists sent by only eight ward councillors and sold less than 27 tonnes of subsidised rice at Tk 10 per kilogram to 2,688 families in areas under Dhaka North City Corporation.

Not a single list sent by the Dhaka South City Corporation councillors was accepted yet by the Dhaka Rationing Office.

‘Verification of the lists sent by the councillors is a difficult and time consuming task,’ said Dhaka Rationing Office chief controller Utpal Kumer Saha.

He complained of numerous flaws in the lists and said that those needed to be fixed before ration cards were issued.

The food department said that with the resources available they could help 12.5 lakh people with 20 kg of the subsidised rice a month.

Besides the capital Dhaka, the subsidised rice is to be sold among the urban poor living in city areas and municipalities across Bangladesh.

The food ministry does not have any idea of the number of ration cards issued so far across the country.

‘It is the duty of local authorities to issue ration cards not us. We are only responsible for releasing allocations,’ said food secretary Nazmanara Khanum.

But the ration office verifying the lists of destitute sent by Dhaka city councillors is under the food ministry.

‘I spent three days in preparing the list and yet the open market sale has not begun,’ said Shafiqul Islam, councillor, Ward 41, DNCC.

For each ration card candidate a two-page form needs to be filled in, he said.

The forms include national identification number which is used by the rationing office to verify that none of the ration card candidates were beneficiaries of other social safety net programmes such as disability allowance or the allowances given to elderly people or freedom fighters.

Mujib Sarwar Masum, ward councillor, Gabtali, said that he finally received 334 ration cards after overcoming all these bureaucratic difficulties last Thursday but was not sure when would the people get the rice.

‘I need minimum 4,000 ration cards to meet the minimum demand in my area,’ said Masum.

New Age talked with half a dozen other councillors worried about the number of destitute families growing rapidly with the shutdown already in place for more than a month.

Different studies showed that the coronavirus crisis has already rendered 16 million people jobless with various socio-economic bodies calling on the government to distribute food and cash among 2 crore families for three months.

The government was ten days late to begin its rice sales through open market sales outlets after it enforced public holiday due to the outbreak of COVID-19 on March 26.

The rice sales continued for less than a week in some selected areas in Dhaka before the government had suddenly announced its suspension until the the issuance of ration cards.

With the government failing to establish a system to reach the poor with food help almost two months into the outbreak of COVID-19 in Bangladesh, many go hungry every day.

Many seemed to have been hungry for a long time as reports came about groups of women, accompanied by children, patrolling many neighbourhoods after it got dark, crying, ‘Is there someone kind enough out there to give us some food.’

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net