Difficult times

1

• Difficult times
• Jameel, 47, lives in village Korya in Makhranai
  Union Council (District Buner, NWFP) with his
  family of 7. He is very upset over the current
  rise in flour price and unavailability. He told
  that he is working on daily wages and earn 120/-
  (One Hundred and Twenty Rupees) per day which is
  not a regular income. His family consumes 80 kg
  of flour every month which costs him almost 2000
  rupees that leaves only 500 rupees for other
  necessities of the entire family such as milk,
  tea, vegetables, Oil/Ghee medicines,
  transportation children school expenses and other
  daily routine expenses. He said Zamunga jwand ba
  der gran she ka hakoomat zar ter zara da de
  mislay se band o naki (Our life will become more
  difficult if government fails to take any action
  soon - translated from Pushto)

2

• Kanji Bhel, aged around 45, is a hari
  (farmer) in village Wanyo Daro, Khipro, Sindh.
  He, his wife and children all work for the
  landlord who has allotted him a land of 4 acres.
  Kanji moved to this village with his family a
  couple of years ago. His land lord, the Thakur,
  bought him from his ex-land lord by paying off
  his debt of Rs. 20,000. Kanji plants cotton,
  wheat and chillies on the land. Due to heavy
  rains, there was no cotton and wheat produce in
  2006. In 2007, mili-beg virus destroyed his
  cotton crop. He sold his share of chilli produce
  for Rs. 2500 per mound about three months back.
  The price of chilli reached Rs. 12000 per mound
  during last month and it is around Rs. 6000 per
  mound now. Only the rich are getting richer from
  this price hike. Poor haris like Kanji, who do
  not have enough to eat, cannot stock their
  produce to benefit from such fluctuations. Kanji
  has a debt burden of Rs. 45,000 from his
  landowner. He says, The landowner gives me 2
  mounds flour and Rs. 500 for other expenses every
  month. This is all he gets to survive with his
  family

3

• Padmon, a school teacher in village Wanyo Daro,
  earning Rs. 3000/- a month, having a small family
  of three members, says, We could at times eat
  vegetables, rice and chicken apart from our
  routine of piyas-roti till a year ago, but now
  eating even piyas-roti and potato has become
  difficult. He further adds, We are still better
  than others, those who do not have any jobs have
  to do without food at times.

4

• Poverty is Curse
• Like other parts of Pakistan, the
  sky-rocketing prices of essential commodities and
  consumer goods particularly the inflation of
  flour, sugar and oil has also victimized the poor
  fisher people who are already surviving in hunger
  due to the drastic decrease in fishing resources.
  Scarcity of flour in the market due to the
  hoarding by the floor mill owners is forcing poor
  fisher folks to sell their fishing tools, their
  only livelihood resource, to buy bread for their
  families. Kalsoom 70 lives in Rehri Goth, on
  north-east of Bin Qasim Port Karachi. Her husband
  has been physically challenged for past 15 years.
  She has two sons and two little daughters. After
  her elder son abandoned the family few years
  back, the second son became the bread winner by
  catching fish. He goes fishing in deep sea for
  months and returns with meagre amount of Rs. 50
  which is far from enough to feed a family of 5.
  To provide bread to her family, Kalsoom also
  works despite her old age and ailing health. She
  sells Cholla (Grams) and earns Rs. 25 per day
  which is not regular income. If some day due to
  illness or bad weather she is unable to go to
  work, the whole family goes hungry. Recent
  increase in flour and sugar prices has added to
  the familys hunger. Kalsoom says. Seeing my
  ailing husband and children hungry makes me cry.
  I wish I were dead. But if I die, who will feed
  my family?