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Allowances for FFs, widows, insolvent persons to increase


Bangladeshpost
Published : 13 Jun 2019 08:39 PM | Updated : 06 Sep 2020 11:47 AM

The budget for the social safety net sector has doubled in the next fiscal year. The government has allocated Tk 74,367 crore in the sector, which is 14.21 percent of the total budget and 2.58 percent of GDP for 2019-20 fiscal. In the revised budget of FY2018-19, the allocation was Tk. 64,404 crore. The Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal in his budget speech said, “We are also implementing various programmes for the marginal communities besides helping the people with disabilities.”

In the last decade, Bangladesh has made significant progress in poverty reduction through a coordinated approach effort of various initiatives including the overall government development programmes, private investment, and social security programmes. The poverty rate was 40.0 percent in 2005, which has declined to 21.8 percent in 2018. The government has declared to further reduce poverty to 12.30 percent and the extreme poverty rate to 4.50 percent by 2023-24.

In a bid to widen the responsibilities of social safety net programmes in 2019-20 fiscal, the minister proposed increasing the state honorarium for the valiant freedom fighters from Tk. 10,000 to Tk. 12,000, increase the number of recipients of adult allowances from 40 lakh to 44 lakh, increase the number of recipients of allowances for widows and victims of domestic violence from 14 lakh to 17 lakh and increase the number of beneficiaries of allowances for all insolvent persons with disabilities from 10 lakh to 15.45 lakh.

The minister also proposed increasing the number of recipients of stipends for disabled students from 90 thousand to one lakh, and the rate of stipends to be increased from Tk 700 to Tk. 750 for primary students, from Tk. 750 to Tk. 800 for secondary students, and from Tk. 850 to Tk. 900 for higher secondary students.

the minister mentioned bringing all third gender people under the social safety net, the number of beneficiaries of Third Gender Livelihood Development programmes to be increased to 6 thousand and additional 20 thousand beneficiaries from the gypsies and disadvantaged communities are to be included in the current list of 64 thousand persons.

The number of beneficiaries of the financial assistance programme for patients suffering from cancer, kidney, liver cirrhosis, paralyzed due to stroke and congenital heart diseases are to be increased from 15 thousand to 30 thousand, the minister said. He said the number of beneficiaries of livelihood development programmes for tea-garden workers is to be increased from 40 thousand to 50 thousand and the number of beneficiaries of maternity allowances for poor mothers would also be increased from 7 lakh to 7 lakh 70 thousand.

The Minister also said, “We are providing disability allowances, stipends for disable students, disability support services and financial assistance to schools for disabled students, as well as increasing budget allocation. The National Disability Development Foundation has been providing various types of services for the empowerment and economic development of the backward, deprived, helpless, autistic and disabled people of the country.”