Stipend for degree-level girls gets Ecnec nod
The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) yesterday approved a Tk 343-crore stipend project for degree-level female students.
Around six lakh students will get Tk 200 per month for five years with retrospective effect from July this year under the programme. Each student will also receive Tk 1,500 to buy books and Tk 1,000 for examination fees per year. In addition, their institutions will get Tk 60 per month against the tuition fees of each student, according to the proposal placed by the planning ministry at the meeting.
Chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the Ecnec meeting approved 14 projects totalling Tk 4,107 crore including a Tk 184-crore project for constructing two buildings for the Election Commission. At present, the Election Commission Secretariat is housed at a planning ministry building.
One 12-storey building and another 13-storey building will be constructed for the commission in the capital's Agargaon, Planning Minister AK Khandaker told reporters after the meeting at the NEC conference room at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar in the capital.
The stipend project will be implemented in phases till 2016.
The project aims to help the female students of poor families to have higher education and create human resources by ensuring a balanced male-female education rate.
“This is an extension of the government's current stipend programme. The students will start getting the money soon,” Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid told The Daily Star over the phone.
Orphans, disabled, children of freedom fighters and extreme poor, and the students whose parents own land less than 75 decimals with an annual income of less than Tk 75,000 are entitled to get the benefit.
To get this, students must have a minimum 75 percent attendance in the class and successful completion of their 1st year and 2nd year examinations.
At present, some 40 lakh students of different levels get stipend.
The Ecnec also approved a Tk 1,493-crore "One house one farm" project with a view to reducing poverty and developing the locality through improving the living standard of rural people of the country, a planning ministry press release said.
A four-year project to solve the stagnation problem of the Kobadak river will be implemented at a cost of Tk 262 crore. The project includes dredging of the Kobadak and digging of a number of canals in Khulna belt and construction of embankments.
Some of the other projects approved include construction of fisheries diploma institutes in Gopalganj, Kishoreganj and Sirajganj districts at Tk 123 crore, widening and development of Barguna-Betagi-Neamati-Bakerganj road at Tk 107 crore, farmers' training for disseminating technology at upazila level at Tk 99 crore and strengthening governance management project at Tk 135 crore.
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