Arrange special incentives for charland extreme people: National Char Alliance

National Char Alliance (NCA) has asked for a separate Covid-19 testing booth in remote charlands to ensure health security of char people, said a press relase.

The NCA has placed a seven-point proposal for char people in the statement. 

The other points the NCA wants to be implemented are monthly allowance and aid for women headed households, ensuring regular allowance and medical aid for elderly people and women, provision of agricultural credit at zero interest rate for farmers of both genders as well as for small entrepreneurs, agricultural products produced in charlands need to have appropriate channel to enter market, special arrangement for providing food aid to women and children of charlands, and financial assistance for seasonal labourers.

National Char Alliance (NCA) is a national platform aimed for creating better life for char people through national level advocacy and research work.

Seeking attention of the prime minister, it has also mentioned in the statement that around 10 million people reside in charlands of the country which is surrounded by a lot of rivers. Seven per cent of total population live in charlands, and charlands comprises more than 10 percent of the total land area.

Charlands are spread over more than 100 upazilas of 40 districts of the country. Due to geographical position of the country, charands are identified as extreme poverty area. Extreme river erosion, flood, drought and unemployment are constant companion of the char people, and they are continuously fighting against these to earn their livelihood, NCA said.

For the whole year, the extreme poor inhabitants of charlands face problem of food insecurity and in remote islands people mostly live on two times meal a day.

Under the said circumstances, the pandemic induced by Covid-19 has put the extreme poor inhabitants of charlands into a new threat. And they are facing food insecurity again in a larger scale. In the meantime, inhabitants of remote charlands including Chapainawabganj, Pabna, Sirajganj, Gaibandha, Jamalpur, and Kurigram are counting days without food or sometimes a little food. As of now, majority of charlands did not receive any food aid yet, the NCA said.

The current situation demands special attention towards people living in charlands, the organisation mentioned.