One month into the Rana Plaza tragedy in Savar, many families of the victims are still passing through difficult days as they haven’t yet got the pledged grants from government or outstanding salaries from the garments authorities.
Many of those who died or are still missing were sole breadwinners of their families. Their relatives, left to suffer the repercussions after they were gone, are now facing acute shortages of money.
Josna, a housewife whose husband Shahjahan’s body was recovered from the wreckage after 13 days of the collapse, is one of them. So far, she has received only Tk20,000 – that too for burial of his husband given by the local administration.
“After the burial, there was no money left. We thought the government would give us the wage my husband used to get from the factory. But it didn’t,” she said.
As a result, the late quality supervisor’s wife along with their six-year-old son started going from one place to another for money.
“Yesterday (May 22), I heard that a bank was giving money to the victims’ family members at Savar Bazar. But that was a rumour,” she said. Someone gave the family 20 kilograms of rice five days ago, which had finished already.
“My husband used to get Tk20,000 a month in his factory. We lived in a rented flat for Tk4,000. After he died, our landlord told us that he would shift us to a small room with lower rent. But he did not.”
So, Josna, with her son Jihad, who is a class two student of a local school, borrowed money from a neighbour to stay in the flat one month more.
“I hope we will get the compensation within a month, with which I can try to do something that will provide for the two of us,” she added.
Josna’s mother-in-law used to stay with them when her husband was alive. But after his death, Josna sent her back home for crisis of money.
Every day, with Jihad, she visits the collapsed building site. She knows she cannot reverse the reality, but her son wants to see the place where his father died.
Apart from Josna, this correspondent met several other families of the victims who were all in more or less similar conditions.
Md. Bishu Sheikh, who lost his daughter Lovely, the only earning member of the family, and Mahmud Hasan, who lost his father Raja Hasan, have also fallen victim to acute crisis of money.