Write a composition on price hike in Bangladesh
Introduction: Price-hike means the unusual increase in the prices of daily necessaries. Nowadays, it is a common phenomenon in Bangladesh. The problem is getting worse day by day. As a result, the consumers are being very badly affected. Especially, the low-income groups and the toiling millions of our country are hard hit by the price-hike.
Fields of price-hike: The main field where price-hike has been the serest is food. In this field, prices have risen more than 70% within the last one year. Besides, prices have recorded and abnormal rise in clothe, fuel, oil and almost all other essential items.
Cause of price-hike: Price-hike should not be regarded as and isolated phenomenon in our economy. In fact, several factors are responsible for this. These are discussed below.
Natural calamities: Bangladesh is very prone to natural calamities. The recurrence of goods, cyclones, tidal bores, droughts etc. has inflicted a terrible blow on food production. This has led to the increase of prices of food gracing as well as other daily necessaries. In fact, during the recent times, many parts of the world are being severely affected because of natural calamities. Recently, on April 30, 2008, the New York Times has published a research report which reveals that price-hike of food gracing around the world is the primary effect of climatic change.
Hoarding : Hoarding has been an important reason for price hike in Bangladesh. It is now rampant at the producers, distributors and even at the consumers' level. As a result, normal supply of commodities breaks down. Besides, the middlemen take every advantage to manipulated the supply of commodities and hoard to make huge profit. All these aggravate the situation of price-hike.
Market syndicate: Market syndicate is highly responsible for price hike in Bangladesh. Some dishonest businessmen of companies are grouped to work together and increase prices of commodities with a profiteering motive. This market syndicate is now prevalent almost in every sector from vegetables to electronic goods.
Smuggling and black-marketing: Smuggling and black- marketing have been a persistent problem since the birth of Bangladesh. Some dishonest people smuggle food and other essential commodities across the border. On the other hand, a section of people adopted black-marketing as a profitable business. These cause decrease in the supply of commodities in the market and rise prices.
Increase of demand: 'Population- boom' has been a serious problem in Bangladesh. Every year approximately 3 million people are being added to our population. For this added people, demand of essential commodities also increase. But since the supply hardly increases, rise of prices is occurred.
Political instability: Political instability in Bangladesh gives rise to political programmed like strike, hartal and political clashes. As a result, production and transportation of commodities are greatly hampered and ultimately causes price-hike.
Lack of proper management: Lack of proper management, particularly at the govt. level is highly responsible fo r price- hike . Many of the importers sell their items at a price much higher than the original price. The distributors and retailers add their desired profit to this and sell the items to the consumers at higher prices. The govt. has opted been a failure to monitor and arrest such price spiral.
Effects of price-hike: Price-hike has created a deplorable condition in society. Lives of general public have been posed to a great threat. Price of essential commodities have gone beyond the capacity of the poor and the fised income people. They are now helpless the question of survival. More or less, as lost people of all classes are suffering from the problem of price-hike.
Steps taken by the govt.: Government has taken different steps to control price- hike in Bangladesh. Abating or removing tax on imported commodities, checking hoarding 'monitoring market, establishing fair price shops like 'Operation Dal- bhat' run by BDR and 'Operation' Nityapanya run by Bangladesh Ansar are some of them. However, these efforts for arresting price-hike seem to bee frustrated.
Ways to prevent price-hike: Price-hike is such problem which cannot be solved overnight. The govt. should take both immediate and long term drastic steps to reduce price-hike. Any syndicate activities are to be suppressed boldly. The govt. should also take every step to increase agricultural production as well as check population growth. At the same time. all possible steps to check climatic change should be taken.
Conclusion: British doner agency ' Oxfam' said that financial aid is not sufficient to check price-hike around the world. On the other hand, on28 April, 2008 Un General Secretary Ban ki Moon told at a meeting in Switzerland to form a taskforce to work on the crisis. In such a situation, at our national level, we cannot go far to deal well with the crisis through isolated measures. The problem must be tackled in a comprehensive way. For this, the govt. should engage all its machineries to enforce proper and effective measures to remove the causes of price-hike.
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