POBNEWS24, Dhaka, Mar 31, 2022 : Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said, “The government has intensified monitoring system across the country to control the prices of daily commodities. Commodity prices are at a tolerable level in the market due to the steps taken by the government. Hopefully, the prices of the products will remain at a tolerable level in the coming holy month of Ramadan. He said this in the question and answer session of the National Assembly on Wednesday.
The Prime Minister expressed her happiness while talking about giving houses to the homeless.
Speaker Dr. Shirin Sharmin Chowdhury presided over the parliamentary session of the National Party. Replying to a written question by Fakhrul Imam, the Prime Minister said the government has taken effective measures to control the rise in prices of all commodities and keep it at a tolerable level. On the occasion of the upcoming holy Ramadan, it has been decided to sell TCB products at a subsidized price to a total of one crore low-income families in all city corporations, districts, upazilas, municipalities and unions before the start of Ramadan and in the middle of Ramadan. However, in the City Corporation area, goods are being sold at subsidized prices through trackcells as before. Regular meetings are being held at the Ministry of Commerce with business leaders and government officials to review the market situation and keep commodity prices stable.
Sheikh Hasina said that under the food-friendly program of selling rice at the rate of Tk 10, 30 kg of rice has been sold monthly to five million extremely poor families in rural areas across the country for five months (September-November and March-April). Under the OMS program, the number of outlets has been tripled and now OMS food grains are being sold in 2013. The OMS program has been extended to the municipality.
Providing housing to the homeless
Replying to a supplementary question by MP Fakhrul Imam, Sheikh Hasina said Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman started the work of building cluster villages for the landless and homeless after independence. Bangabandhu’s dream was that no person in the country would be homeless, landless and without an address. It was the goal of the father of the nation. The present government is working to fulfill that goal.
“My goal is to give people a better life,” he said. Since coming to power in 1996, we have been building and rehabilitating landless people. We are not just sitting with the house, paying them after giving the house, training them. I am also making way for income. ‘
Russia-Ukraine war issue
During the question and answer session, the Prime Minister said that Bangladesh did not vote in the UN resolution against Russia as a single country on the issue of Russia-Ukraine war, but voted on the second resolution as it was about Ukraine’s human rights.
He said, ‘War is not alone. Someone is provoking. So why would a country be condoned? That is why we abstained from voting. ‘
Highlighting Russia’s contribution to Bangladesh during the war of liberation, Sheikh Hasina said, “Russia is our friendly country. Pakistan when the United States sent the Seventh Fleet during the Great Liberation War; Russia then sided with us. So we will be by the side of those who have stood by us in times of trouble. But if they do something wrong, we will not accept it. And we don’t want war. But we have to see who stopped the war. We have not made any decision for that. Since against a country, we decided not to vote. ‘
Prohibition against RAB
Replying to a question by Mujibul Haque Chunnu on US sanctions against RAB, the Prime Minister said the then BNP government had created RAB to suppress terrorism on the advice of US after 9/11. However, they have used the RAB arbitrarily. But since the Awami League came to power, RAB has been doing humanitarian work including militancy, suppression of terrorism and investigation of killings. Not human rights violations, they are working to protect human rights.
