BSS-07 Speakers for flawless household database to eradicate poverty

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ZCZC

BSS-07

HOUSEHOLD-DATABASE-POVERTY

Speakers for flawless household database to eradicate poverty

DHAKA, Dec 26, 2017 (BSS) – Speakers at a function today laid emphasis on
preparing a flawless National Household Database (NHD) to identify economic
status of the people aiming to eliminate poverty.

The government has set a target of collecting data from 3.5 crore
households of the country for preparing NHD to find out the number of poor
people to bring them under social safety-net programme, they told the
inaugural function of Training of Trainers (ToT) at Bangladesh Bureau of
Statistics (BBS) here.

The National Household Database Project under the BBS has organised the
training programme in cooperation with Thengamara Mohila Sabuj Sangha (TMSS).

Additional Secretary (Development) of Statistics and Informatics Division
Bikash Kishore Das, Additional secretary (Information Management) Mahmuda
Akhtar, Director of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) of TMSS
Nigar Sultana and Project Director of NHD Programme Md Shafiul Alam, among
others, addressed the function with BBS Director General Md Amir Hossain in
the chair.

Shafiul said the second phase of NHD would begin from January 14 and it
will continue till February 2 to collect data from households in 25 districts
of three divisions – Dhaka, Chittagong and Mymensingh.

“All districts of Dhaka and Chittagong and Netrokona district under
Mymensingh division will be covered to collect data from all households,” he
added.

“We are using Proxy Mean Test-Formula (PMTF) to assess economic status of
every household in Bangladesh,” Shafiul added.

Bikash said, “NHD, an online database, will be prepared based on economic
status of every household to bring the target group under the social safety-
net programme which will remove all sorts of irregularities.”

The NHD project was officially launched in 2013 and it will be completed by
December, 2018, the project sources said. Under the project, data will be
collected from 3.5 crore households across the country in three phases, they
added.

BBS DG Amir said, “As the country has no household database, we cannot
assess economic condition at family level, which is hampering the poverty
reduction efforts of the government. I believe that the NHD will remove
overlapping practices of social safety-net programmes.”

Referring to the latest BBS data revealed in October, 2016, its officials
said percentage of extreme poor in the country is 12.9 while overall rate of
poor people is 18.5.

Nigar Sultana said, “We have completed first phase of NHD project
successfully with valuable cooperation of local administration. Without the
assistance of local administration, we would not be able to prepare a perfect
household database.”

After preparing of NHD, real beneficiaries will be included in the social
safety-net programme, she said adding NHD will significantly help to achieve
Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) through successful implementation of
social safety-net programme.

BSS/MMR/ARS/1558 hrs