For many of us, the winter has arrived as a season of weddings, picnics, stylish warm clothes, badminton, and different types of pithas (cakes) whereas it is like a frozen hell for the poor people as their sufferings know no bounds in the bone-chilling cold.
The ongoing spell of cold waves has caused a sudden drop in temperature with dense fog at night, which has made life miserable for people belonging to lower social ladder, particularly rickshaw pullers, day labourers, street children and deserted elderly people who sleep under the open sky.
During a visit to some train and bus stations, markets, parks, foot over bridges, and pavements in the capital at midnight, this correspondent found many floating people shivering with cold. Winter has turned unforgivably harsh for them as they have to spend long foggy nights with no warm clothes to shield them from the biting cold.
A woman and her one-year-old child were found sleeping on the Farmgate foot over bridge wearing a torn cardigan and a thin worn-out sweater. Hugging her baby, the luckless mother was trying to share warmth.
Around 15 to 20 homeless people were seen preparing to sleep in a row on the footpath in front of the Institute of Fine Arts at Dhaka University.
Wrapping with a mosquito net and quilt, Korimon Bewa, a septuagenarian woman, was found trying to protect herself from the cold.
“I am alone and helpless. I get something to eat if anybody provides me with food. Otherwise, I starve. The icy wind of winter has made life woeful for poor people like us,” she said.
A large number of floating people sleep in Kamalapur Railway Station every night. Some of them beside a railway platform were seen huddling around fires lit with dry leaves, wearing torn clothes to protect themselves from the chill.
Middle-aged Badsha Mia, a mineral water and juice seller at the station, said, “I have only one piece of warm cloth. Therefore, I try to find a place to sleep where the flow of wind is much less.
Sometimes, I light a fire to get some warmth.”
Additional Secretary (Planning, Development and Law) Jobaida Begum and Additional Secretary (Institutions and Disability) Ibrahim Khan of the Ministry of Social Welfare could not figure out the actual number of floating people in the capital.
According to the Population and Housing Census 2022, there are 10,000 floating people in Dhaka. A study by the Institute of Social Welfare and Research in 2023 found that the number was 50,000 though experts, who work with the underprivileged in the capital, say the actual number is much higher.
Apart from managing their bread and butter, they contribute to the economy significantly through their physical labour. Some of them said that winter forces them to make difficult choices. If they buy warm clothes, they will have nothing to eat.
Asked about the steps of the government to ease the sufferings of cold-hit homeless people in Dhaka, Social Welfare Secretary Md Khairul Alam Shiekh refused to make any comment without scrutinising the papers.
Officials of different ministries say that the government has been distributing blankets among cold-hit poor people across the country. Many poor people, however, complained that the government assistance was too scanty to protect them from the cold.
Rights activists said the government can set up tents in open spaces to accommodate low-earning floating people in exchange for token money like different other countries.
They also stressed the need for more support from the government as well as the affluent people in reducing the suffering of these underprivileged people.
Kazi Reazul Hoque, former chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, said, “The government must take measures to protect the poor people from extreme cold. It will be difficult for the poor people to survive unless the wealthier section of society stands by them.”
