পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (চতুর্দশ খণ্ড).pdf/১৬০

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128 বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ চতুর্দশ খন্ড The region's usual rice deficit is about two million tons a year: this year it will probably be around three million. Dock Laborers have tied Apart from the transport mess, ports such as Chittagong and Chalna are also severely hampered by a lack of warehouse space and by labor shortages because much of the work force has fled to the interior or to India. Because of the port congestion, the United States, which normally supplies East Pakistan with up to a million tons of grains a year, has temporarily suspended shipments. The other major food-scarce area is the delta region on the Bay of Bengal that was devastated by the cyclone last November that killed several, hundred thousand people and destroyed most of the rich rice crop there. Food stocks are low on the islands and in the coastal areas, although conditions are not as critical as was originally feared because some relief food been delivered. Nevertheless, the foreign sources said, unless the distribution system improves, the region could become a famine area. The Khulna district in the Ganges Delta also has a food problem, the sources said, because many Hindu farmers and farm laborers have fled. The minority Hindus have been particular targets of the army, which pictures them as agents of India and energies of this Moslem nation Another unknown is the long-run impact of the exodus of the six million Bengalis who have fled to India. Their departure, which has cut food output and industrial production, has also reduced consumption. Even in areas where rice is in reasonably good supply, cash is short and many villagers cannot afford to buy enough, even at the reduced prices at which the fleeing Hindu farmers arc gelling it. The main reason for the shortage of money is that the Government's rural public works program has been almost halted. Laborers who used to make 60 cents a day building roads, irrigation canals and dikes are jobless. All development work has stopped. Government agricultural technicians and private irrigation-well contractors are afraid to go into the interior. Foreign consultants and engineers are killing time in their Dacca offices. Government offices, though open, are short of staff and doing no planning work Jute factories are operating at a fraction of their former levels. The eastern region's jute, one of the mainstays of the national economy, is Pakistan's biggest export and earner of foreign exchange. This was the economic picture found by the World Bank team that toured East Pakistan recently to study the prospects of peace and stability as a requisite to the resumption of full-scale aid.