1cr poor families to get subsidised food from today

The second phase of a food aid programme for one crore poor families is set to begin on Thursday amid some anomalies while enlisting the beneficiary families, an official of the commerce ministry said.

Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has appreciated the government’s move to provide subsidised food to families who do not have normal purchasing power amid uncertainty over the Ukraine war and deadly coronavirus pandemic.

The IMF wants the government to share the actual data on the needy people who are the beneficiaries of the food aid programme, the official said.

The Finance Division of the finance ministry has already gathered 27 lakh household data from the country’s lone public trading company, the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB).

The first phase of the large task for TCB to supply one crore listed beneficiaries the food support had begun on March 20. The families have already received edible oil, sugar, lentil, gram seeds, onions and dates through the offices of the deputy commissioners (DCs) and Upazila nirbahi officers.

A Finance Division official said the IMF has lauded the programme because it does not escalate inflationary pressure ahead of the Eid-ul-Fitr festival which is likely to be celebrated in early May.

The commerce ministry had asked the government for a Tk 400 crore fund to distribute low-priced food to the poor during the coronavirus pandemic.

However, the new programme that will benefit one crore families would cost the government Tk 1,200 crore and is yet to be placed before the Finance Division for approval.

The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics data shows the annual inflation rate in Bangladesh rose to 6.17 percent in February of 2022 from 5.86 percent in the previous month. The February inflation rate was the highest since October of 2021, driven by the prices of food products.

The commerce ministry official said corruption and nepotism had increased the cost of the public programme, undermining the image of the government.

He said a four-storey building owner has allegedly received subsidised food, setting a bad example for a good programme of the government.

He said the unabated corruption is further endangering the lives of the extreme poor.

The chairman of the Consumers’ Association of Bangladesh (CAB), Ghulam Rahman, said, “The food programme is a good initiative, no doubt, but it should be strongly monitored.”

He said helping one crore families means that nearly five crore people would be benefitting from the programme. “That is roughly one-third of the population.”

The additional secretary to the commerce ministry and coordinator of the food subsidy programme, AHM Shafiquzzaman told the Business Insider Bangladesh, “We have no hand in the making of the beneficiary list where people are selected by the political person like the chairman and members of upazilas.”

He said if such incidents are kept aside, subsidising the food programme for one crore families is not bad at all.

Shafiquzzaman said: “We hope that those incidents will not happen in the second phase of the programme.”

According to the Asian Development Bank, the population living below the national poverty line dropped to 20.5 percent in 2019 from 24.3 percent in 2016.