Unicef Bangladesh yesterday raised concern over the growing number of children in the country being pushed into child labour, as schools are closed since March last year and poverty levels are rising amid the pandemic. "Families are struggling to cope and using every available means to survive. We need to prioritise the needs of children and address the wider social issues
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal yesterday refused to accept data on the new poor released earlier through surveys conducted by private research organisations to measure the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic-induced income losses. "We need to know first who is on this list and how they collected the number of poor," he told journalists after a meeting of the cabinet committee
Staff Correspondent | Published: 15:04, Jun 09,2021 | Updated: 15:33, Jun 09,2021
Finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on
Finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on Wednesday said he did not admit that around 2.4crore people had become new poor in Bangladesh due to Covid crisis.
Answering to a question on the country new poor after a meeting of the cabinet committee on government purchases, he wanted to know how the number was calculated.
Local think-tank Power and Participation Research Centre put the number of new poor at 2.45 crore while another think-tank Centre for Policy Dialogue said that 1.6 crore people became new poor.
In its ‘Bangladesh Development Update-2021’ World Bank estimated the upper poverty rate would increase by 7 percentage points to 30 per cent due to the novel coronavirus spread.
Kamal rejects new poor data by private research organisations
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal
Star Business Report
Star Business Report
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal today rejected to accept the data on new poor that came out earlier through surveys done by private research organisations to measure the effect of Covid-induced income loss.
Over the last one year, Brac Institute for Governance and Development and Power and Participation Research Centre, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) and South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM) found in their surveys that poverty rates rose to 35 per cent to 43 per cent as many lost income opportunities in the wake of countrywide shutdown and resultant economic slowdown.