Bangladesh fuel prices: ‘I might start begging in the street’

Demonstrators in Bangladesh protesting against fuel price rises.

Bangladesh, one of the world’s fastest-growing financial systems, has raised energy prices by mote than 50% in only a week. It blames rising oil prices in the wake from the war in Ukraine. Thousands of people have delivered to the streets within protest, as another South Asian nation deals with a growing financial crisis.

As he lines up to get petrol for the truck which he uses to transport vegetables, Mohammad Nurul Islam says he’s scared that he may quickly have to resort to begging.

An urgent rise in fuel prices in Bangladesh has seen petrol prices go from eighty six taka (91 pennies, 75p) a litre, to 130 taka ($1. 37, £1. 13).

Diesel plus kerosene have also increased by 42. 5%.

The steep increases have left Mohammed, who has been working for a transportation company for the last nine years, struggling to purchase the basics.

The particular 35-year-old, who lives in the northern city of Dinajpur, takes refreshing produce from his hometown to the capital, Dhaka.

He has two young children and his parents to support, yet says his employers can’t afford to pay him his full salary now the particular fuel price hike has come in.

“When I visit the market, I can’t buy enough food just for my family. If the associated with fuel keeps improving like this, I can’t look after my parents or send out my children to school.

“If We lose my work, I might have to begin begging in the street, ” he says.

Countless others in the country of more than 168 million people are facing an identical predicament.

Like many other countries, Bangladesh has been at the sharpened end of the worldwide rise in oil prices in the wake associated with Russia’s invasion associated with Ukraine.

“We know the price enhance is big, yet what can we do if the cost of the fuel increases within foreign countries? inch the country’s energy minister, Nasrul Hamid, told BBC Bangla.

Denying claims of economic mismanagement by the government, Mr Hamid said their administration had currently given out subsidies to avoid rises in the past, but the hikes were right now unavoidable.

“If the global prices come down by a certain stage, we will try to make some adjustments, ” he added.

After information of the rise had been announced last week, countless numbers protested at gas stations across the country within scenes reminiscent of Sri Lanka , calling for the improves to be reversed.

Protests in Bangladesh have been sporadic, but the anger and resentment is growing.

People refuel their motorcycles at a petrol station after fuel price surges up to 50%

Nasrul Hamid believes their country will avoid the fate of Sri Lanka, even though foreign currency reserves are falling.

In July, Bangladesh – whose economic climate had been lauded among the fastest-growing in the world — became the third Southern Asian nation to seek a loan from the International Monetary Fund, after Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

But for Mossammad Zakia Sultana, who can barely afford the bus cost to take her sick and tired child for therapy, any help is going to be too late.

Because public transport fares rise because of soaring fuel costs, she is making only the majority of essential journeys.

She speaks to the BBC on the bus along the way to the hospital, the girl teenage daughter next to her. She states that recent rises in food costs have already hit the girl hard.

“Not only has the bus fare increased, the price of everything in the market has also increased, making it difficult for me to run my family expenses, ” she says.

“It’s not only bus fares. Rickshaws and other transport possess gone up, so it is getting difficult just to get out of the house. ”

In more remote areas of Dinajpur, the stories are similar. Sheuli Hazda works in the paddy fields in the rice-producing district associated with Phulbari.