Eminent educationist Prof Muzaffer Ahmad yesterday called on the government to introduce food rationing for class three and four government employees to tackle the situation resulting from price hike of essentials. "Hunger could be lessened through food rationing for class three and four employees, which can be introduced by reducing the rations of another section of employees up to 50 percent. Increasing the salary of employees cannot reduce hunger," he said at a seminar. The seminar on 'Disaster, economy and human development: Roadblocks to achieving MDGs by 2015' was part of two-day long national seminar jointly organised by Advancing Public Interest Trust (APIT) and the Shaptahik, a new weekly magazine, at the National Press Club. Prof Muzaffer said, "We did not see any link between natural disasters and the price hike in the past. The real reason behind the price hike of essentials lies somewhere else. If the food ministry could estimate the deficit of food supply several months beforehand, rice can be imported at only 240 US dollars per ton at that time." About the inclusion of the disaster management issue in school curriculum, he said, "Not everything can be included in the textbooks. The disaster management issue could be taught in the school through rapid readers, which was a part of syllabus few years ago." "We should develop the social institutions to develop our human resources and we must capitalise on water, land and human resources in order to meet the MDGs and for sustainable development," he added. Presenting the keynote paper in the seminar, Rayhan Sharif of APIT said the rate of dropouts from schools has gone up due to natural disasters. Disasters had a long-term effect on the economy, he added. Former vice chancellor of Dhaka University Prof Moniruzzaman Miah, Country Director of ActionAid Farah Kabir, Director of Disaster Management Bureau Abu Sadek, former lawmaker GM Qader and Secretary General of Jatiya Party Sheikh Shahidul Islam also spoke.