After Sri Lanka’s devastating crisis, thousands of protesters took street in several cities in Bangladesh after government hiked the prices of fuel by nearly 52%. This hike in fuel is the highest recorded after Bangladesh got its independence. The government has blamed the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war for this unexceptional hike in fuel price. Angry protesters have besieged fuel station across the South Asian nation and demanded a rollback of the unprecedented rise in fuel. Lets look what has happened.
Reason for Fuel Hike
According to a Reuters report, petrol prices have increased by 51.2% to 130 taka a litre, as of Saturday. While the 95-octance gasoline by 51.7% to 135 taka, and diesel and kerosene by 42.5%. Nation’s power energy and mineral resources prices has also sky-rocketed. Bangladesh’s inflation rate has increased above 6% and hit 7.48% in July. This burnt have been faced mainly by the lower stratum of the society and also by the middle-class families to day-to-day expenses.
Rice in fuel means Rise in other commodities
The growing inflation is bound to increase the prices of kitchen essentials such as pulses, oil, salt, rice as well as clothing and other necessary commodities. This will burn the pockets of poor people to meet their daily needs and also middle-class family will feel the heat of inflation as essential commodity price rises.
Government’s Measure to deal with the Situation
The government has taken a series of measures to contain the situation, including placing curbs on luxury goods imports and on fuel imports which includes LNG and shutting down of diesel-run power plants as it restored to recurring power outages. “The new prices will not seem tolerable to everyone. But we had no other choice. People have to be patient”, Nasrul Hamid , state minister for power, energy and mineral resources told reporters.
Bangladesh is currently reeling under economic uncertainty, and on July 24 had formally requested a $4.5 million loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to combat its ongoing financial crisis. The country’s foreign exchange are continuously draining, due to steep inflation caused by the Russia-Ukraine war. The reason for this hike given by government is “price adjustment”, something that was “forced to do” because fuel prices rose internationally much higher than in Bangladesh. However the actual reason being to fulfill the key condition of the IMF loan. The situation is indicating situation like Sri Lanka and Pakistan, where economic crisis is sky-rocketing and commoners are suffering due to government’s misgovernance.
