They do not have enough money for shopping. But making shopping bags has given them an opportunity to earn money, leading to better lives and a more hopeful future.
Some 400 people are engaged in making the bags at Helai village under Kaliganj upazila in Jhenidah.
Most of the bag makers are women, especially housewives and girl students. They make the bags at their homes to help maintaining their families.
Konica Khatun, 32, wife of a day laborer, is one of the bag makers. She does it after doing all of her household works.
“By making shopping bags, I can earn around 90 taka a day. With the earning, I can help my husband to maintain our family,” she said.
What the women basically do is that sewing the plastic sheets which are cut in different sizes of bags. They do it for some local businessmen who provide them the plain plastic sheets.
Md Salam Uddin, Md Jahangir Alam, Md Tarikul Islam and Ilias Hossain are among the businessmen. They said today, shoppers do not carry bags from their homes, rather they buy it only at Tk5 to Tk7 to carry their goods from kitchen markets.
Salam Uddin said they bought the plastic sheet at Tk90 a kilogramme from Dhaka or Pabna. Some 50 bags are made from a kilogramme of the sheets.
“We pay Tk6 to the bag makers for per dozen of bags. A village women can make 15 dozen bags in a day,” he said.
Another businessman Ilias Hossain said making the bags is very easy for village women.
“Because we supply the sheet to the respective house as they want. We also supply them thread and other equipment,” he said.
Even girl students from poor families are making the bag at their home to meet the expenses of their education.
Parvina Khatun, a student of IX of Salimunnessa Girls’ School, said: “I make at least 10 dozens bags a day. With the money, I buy materials for my education,” she said.
Abdul Kalam is another stakeholder of the bag business. He mainly buy the bags from the businessmen of the village and sell those in different markets in the district as well as other districts.
A school teacher, Solaiman Hossain, said the business had brought a positive change in the lives of people.