Bangladesh faces "hidden hunger," not famine - adviser

By Ruma Paul

DHAKA (Reuters) - Recent sharp rises in commodity prices have stoked up a "hidden hunger" Bangladesh had been experiencing for a long time, but the nation has yet to face a famine, an adviser to the army-backed interim government said.

"We are facing a hidden hunger that has been more exposed now due to the sudden sharp rise in food prices," said A.M.M. Shawkat Ali, food and disaster management adviser.

"Famine is a far worse condition where short supply of food leads to starvation and to a large number of deaths," he told reporters late on Thursday.

"Bangladesh currently is still far from such a situation. We have no starvation, although low- and middle-income people are facing a tough time as prices have spiralled abnormally," he said.

Prices of rice, the main staple for the country's more than 140 million people, together with wheat, pulses, edible oil and other commodities have nearly doubled over the past year, hitting poor people hard.

Officials and experts blame the rise on increasing prices in the global markets and a series of floods and cyclones that struck the south Asian country last year.

Shawkat said the government had started selling 268,555 tonnes of rice at "cut prices" for the poor under a month-long special programme.

It will also spend 1 billion taka ($14.5 million) to provide jobs to the rural poor, who will be employed to build roads and dykes and other development projects, the adviser said. His comments came amid allegations by political parties and a former bureaucrat that the interim authority had failed to tackle the food crisis, pushing the country into a "silent famine."