Tanim Ahmed

Food for the hungry. Schools for the illiterate. Hospitals for the sick. Land for the landless. Guaranteed work for the unemployed. And that is not all. Between them the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party promised universal sanitation, food security, internet connection at every upazila. Agriculture will thrive with the government providing easy loans and subsidised inputs. Industries will flourish with massive investment. Exports will boom as new sectors emerge and unexplored markets are opened up. For the deprived, dispossessed and disadvantaged, there will be an all encompassing safety-net. There will be electricity lighting up houses in every nook and cranny, natural gas supply will reach the northern and western regions.

In short it is a long wish list for the most part. Considering the condition of the country, thanks to both the main parties bickering amongst themselves and exploiting their tenures in office, the list would have to be quite long anyway. One is a little more concrete than the other but no less wishful. There is just one problem though: neither of the wish lists mentions money. Each of the lofty wishes would require much of it to actually implement. One cannot help but wonder where the money will come from or how such amounts will be made available to all fronts at the same time. Subsidies for agricultural inputs, increased safety net, establishment of schools and hospitals, incentives for industries and power generation, besides a host of other programmes are all going to require substantial resources.

Unless, of course, there is a magic lamp somewhere and the genie will only do the bidding of the winning party. Zap, and there you have it. Now only if the people could get their three wishes.