50m poor uplifted to middle class: Hasina

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday claimed that 50 million poor people had been uplifted to the middle class group during the present government's tenure due to developments in many sectors.
The developments include rise of agricultural productions through the reduction of prices of agricultural inputs. The government would build agro-based industries in every region of the country to boost agricultural production, she said.
Hasina, also the president of the ruling Awami League, was addressing a national council of the party's associated body, Krishak League, at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in the capital.
Talking to The Daily Star, former finance adviser to a caretaker government, Mirza Azizul Islam, said it was true that some people had been uplifted to the middle income group as remittance, overall growth and per capita income rose in the country.
But coming up with a figure like that requires holding a household income and expenditure survey and the last survey of this kind was held in 2010, said Mirza, also a renowned economist.
Hasina, responding to BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia's announcement to construct two Padma bridges if they were voted to power, said when the AL-led government could not build one bridge in their five-year tenure, how would BNP build two.
“There should be a limit to fraud and deception,” she said.
Hasina, in her speech, said food production, per capita income, Gross Domestic Product, exports, foreign reserves and investment increased due to sincere efforts of the government.
She reiterated that the next parliamentary elections in Bangladesh would be held in the way other parliamentary democracies in the world hold theirs.
Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury, General Secretary of All India Kishan Sabva, the farmers' wing of the CPI(M), Atul Kumar Anjaan and Krishak League General Secretary Motahar Hossain Mollah spoke at the programme, chaired by its President Mirza Abdul Jalil.