Bangladesh’s banking system has been hit by the plague of default loans and today it stands at a staggering total of Tk 182,295 crore. According to data released by the Bangladesh Bank, default loans have increased Tk 36,662 crore between January and March this year alone.

This is a mammoth 25 per cent increase.

The data comes hot in the heels of a foreign currency crisis, which has made the country seek loans from China and the International Monitory Fund.

The culture of loan default is not new, however, what is strange is the culture of impunity surrounding this. 

The country has become a playground for the oligarch, and defaulting loans for them means nothing.

While the poor can be taken to the court for unable to pay the instalments of small loans, the rich can afford to get away with making off millions from the government exchequer.

To make matters sad to grievous, most of the big defaulters are backed by the power that be. The intermingling of the loan defaulters and ruling party high-ups is indeed blurry, so much so that, at times, they cannot be separated.

While Bangladesh is at the crossroads of shrugging off its developing country tag, millions are still live in abject poverty. According to a UNICEF report two in every three children under the age of five live in child food poverty.

Not only that one in five children in the country live in ‘severe’ child food poverty.

So while the new rich can gloat in their stolen money, a hungry, stunted and malnourished Bangladesh is knocking on our door.

Only revolutionary turn around in the country’s politics and economy can bring about a real change, which at present, however, looks like a far cry.

AM Hussain is a Bangladeshi-born writer and journalist.