Elderly poor, others: Govt to shelve safety net expansion plan

The government is going to discard its plan to bring all elderly poor under its social safety net programmes in 100 more upazilas in a bid to prevent the non-poor from misusing the support.

In the first week of April, the cabinet committee on social safety net decided that the government would bring 100 per cent poor in another 100 upazilas under three major safety net programmes.

The programmes are the old-age allowance, the allowance for widows, deserted and destitute women, and the insolvent disabled person allowance.

If implemented, more than nine lakh new beneficiaries would come under the schemes, and an additional Tk 550 crore would be needed to fund the initiatives.

In his budget speech last June, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said 100 per cent coverage for deserving beneficiaries belonging to the extremely high and high poverty groups will be extended to another 150 upazilas.

But finance ministry officials said the government has decided not to broaden the support programmes in new upazilas as, it believes, such a programme might include non-poor, depriving other priority areas of adequate funds.

The government introduced the old-age allowance in the fiscal year of 2020-2021 in 112 most poverty-stricken upazilas to support the indigent elderly during the difficult period brought on by the outbreak of Covid-19.

The number of elderly people aged 62 and above is about 1.14 crore in the country, according to a survey of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).

Of them, 57.1 lakh elderly people from all upazilas in the country are benefiting under the old-age allowance, accounting for more than half of the older population in the country, said an official of the finance ministry.

"So, the government has decided not to expand the programme."

The latest poverty survey of the BBS showed that about 20 per cent people are living below the poverty line. Even if the pandemic-stricken poor is considered, the number of poor people could be a maximum of 30 per cent, the official said.

Prof MM Akash, chairman of the economics department of the University of Dhaka, said considering that the poor should be given priority, the government's decision could be a logical one.

"However, before that, the government needs to prepare a master list of the poor people which has not been done yet. There will be no benefit in talking big without having the list."

The economist called for eliminating the non-poor from the list of the beneficiaries under the old-age allowance scheme, if any.

The government is, however, going to increase the number of beneficiaries and the monthly allowance under the insolvent disabled person allowance programme.

At present, about 20 lakh beneficiaries receive support under the initiative. Their number will be raised to 23 lakh, while the monthly allowance will go up by Tk 100 to Tk 850, sources said.

Similarly, the number of beneficiaries under the maternity allowance programme dedicated to poor lactating mothers will go up to 12.75 lakh from the present 10.45 lakh in the next fiscal year starting on July 1.

The allowance and the number of beneficiaries under other major social protection programmes are unlikely to see upward revisions in the upcoming national budget.

This is because the government is going to undertake an extensive food-based programme to support the poor, said officials.

The poor have been hit hard by higher prices of basic essentials due to a spike in inflation caused by elevated commodity prices stemming from the Russia-Ukraine war, supply disruptions and the dragging pandemic.

So, the subsidy for food will be increased to Tk 6,745 crore in the new budget, up from Tk 5,500 crore in the revised allocation for the current fiscal year.

Despite higher allocation, the total social safety net budget in Bangladesh will be below 3 per cent of gross domestic product. In the current fiscal year, the allocation stands at 3.11 per cent of the national output.

According to the new base year of 2015-2016, the size of GDP has expanded significantly.

In 2022-2023, the size of GDP will be Tk 43,63,526 crore in the current price, up from Tk 34,56,040 crore in the current fiscal year as per the 2005-06 base year and Tk 38,95,483 crore as per the new base year.