Govt to widen social safety net, keeping individual benefits unchanged

The government has decided to expand the coverage of its various social safety net programmes across the country from the next fiscal 2022-23, an official of the finance ministry said.

The decision to expand the safety net base was made at a virtual meeting of the cabinet committee on social safety net on Sunday. It was presided over by Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal.

State Minister for Social Welfare Md Ashraf Ali Khan Khasru and Senior Finance Secretary Abdur Rouf Taluker also attended the virtual meeting.

“After introducing the universal pension scheme, we may not need huge funds for the social safety net programme. Most of the people will not come under the social safety net programme,” the official said.

The finance minister instructed the social welfare ministry to expand the coverage of the social safety net from the next fiscal year so that more distressed people could enjoy the social entitlements.

The meeting decided to raise the number of old age allowance recipient upazilas from the current 162 to 295.

The incumbent budget has allocated Tk 3,444 crore as old age allowances in 162 upazilas.

The social welfare ministry wanted to increase the old age allowance rate to Tk 600 from Tk 500 but it was turned down in the meeting.

Meanwhile, the social welfare ministry proposed the finance ministry to award Tk 10,000 to each of the freedom fighters under a new head of Independence Allowance and Tk 5,000 as Bengali New Year Allowance but those were rejected too, meeting sources said.

At present, the family of a War Hero receives an honorarium of Tk 65,000 per month. However, the Ministry of Social Welfare has proposed to increase the honorarium by Tk 5,000 to Tk 70,000 in the next national budget. 

Similarly, the honorarium of Bir Uttam and their families was proposed to raise from Tk 25,000 to Tk 35,000, Bir Bikram from Tk 20,000 to Tk 30,000 and freedom fighters with heroic symbol from Tk 20,000 to Tk 25,000, respectively.

At the same time, it was also proposed to hike the grant of war wounded freedom fighters from Tk 45,000 to Tk 50,000. The allowance for second category of wounded freedom fighters was proposed to increase from Tk 35,000 to Tk 40,000, respectively.

But the social welfare ministry’s proposals were outright rejected by the finance ministry on the ground that more people are being added to safety net programme from the next fiscal year.

The current budget allocated Tk 150 crore for people suffering from cancer, kidney, liver cirrhosis, stroke, paralysis and thalassemia. The Ministry of Social Welfare has proposed to increase the medical allocation by Tk 50 crore to Tk 200 crore in the next budget. The number of beneficiaries will be increased to 40,000 from the current number of 30,000.

At present, a beneficiary receives once for all Tk 50,000. The amount of the allowance may not change.

The existing Employment Generation Programme for the Poorest (EGPP) has only mentioned that 10 percent of poorest people will be entitled to food for work programme. Now, the local lawmakers want more poor people to bring under the scheme in their respective constituencies, meeting sources said.

However, the finance secretary said the hardcore poor people will be identified under a fresh Bangladesh Poverty Map. The last Poverty Map was prepared in 2016.