A double whammy of intense cold waves and scarcity of winter clothes has made life miserable for the poor residents of char areas and people with limited income in Lalmonirhat, affecting their livelihood and increasing susceptibility to winter diseases.
The district has been swept over by icy winds coupled with dense fog in the past two weeks and those living near Teesta and Dharla rivers took the full brunt of them.
The situation has been similar in all five upazilas of Lalmonirhat and many have complained of disruption in their daily life and livelihood as they could not go out for work – especially in the morning – because of the severe cold outside.
Seher Ali, 48, a day labourer living at the Char Sholmari village of Kaliganj upazila, said, “I could not go out to work in the last few days due to the biting chill and heavy fog outside. I have no warm clothe either, which could protect me against the cold.”
“There are many like me facing the same situation. Their life, as well as mine, depends on the income we earn daily and an inability to work means starvation for us all. Those of us who borrowed money from the moneylenders to support ourselves through this phase did so with high interest rates.”
Khadiza Bewa, 72, who lives at the Wapda village of Mogholhat union, said she was too poor to afford buying warm clothes but the government and non-government organisations were not any help either.
“If I had a blanket, I could do well during this winter. My sons earn by pulling rickshaws but their incomes are too meagre to afford anything other than meeting our very basic needs, such as food and daily essentials,” she added.
There are allegations that items of winter clothing that are distributed by the government during winter often land in the wrong hands, with chairpersons of union parishads setting aside a significant portion of them for their own relatives and party loyalists.
However, Idris Ali, chairman of Kulaghat union parishad, refuted the allegation saying allocations for such purposes often tended to be small. “Only 70 blankets have been given for my union so far, which are really insufficient for such a large group of people needing them.”
“There are at least 5,000 people who can be categorised as ultra-poor in the union; they all need warm clothes but none affords buying that at the market.”
In this regard, Lalmonirhat District Relief and Rehabilitation Officer Mahasinul Haque said his department had sent a request for 15,000 blankets to the ministry in the last week but received no reply yet.
The department had so far received about 3,400 blankets since the start of winter which were disbursed among cold-hit people of 45 unions of the five upazilas, he added.
