One story that went viral last month was that of Narayanganj's Farid Ahmed, who had called the national hotline seeking relief but was deemed "too rich" to get any government aid. The upazila nirbahi officer took one look at Farid's clean-pressed clothes, his parental building of four storeys shared among seven siblings, and decided that he was attempting to swindle the
The government has created two separate funds worth a combined Tk 12,300 crore under its massive social safety net programmes in the next fiscal year for targeted populations and low-paid informal sector workers. Of these funds, Tk 7,300 crore has been earmarked for the purpose of providing cash assistance to the poor and vulnerable and addressing Covid-19 health risks,
Poverty steadily reduced for 30 years until 2019. Then came the pandemic. Achievements made in three decades have almost been wiped out in just one year and three months after the first cases of Covid-19 were detected in Bangladesh in March 2020. Different organisations working on poverty alleviation and economists have repeatedly demanded wider social safety net programmes
The government should keep in mind the demands of people of all walks of life while preparing the national budget for 2021-22 fiscal year, analysts said at a discussion organised by NTV, a news channel. "We are going through the toughest financial year. Due to corona, two crore people have become poor. Employment of 2-3 crore people is at risk," said Debapriya Bhattacharya,