DHAKA, Aug 29, 2019 (BSS)-It was sorely a sordid state for Arati Dey, who became a widowed at the age of 47 after the loss of her husband in a tragic road accident. The sudden death of her husband in 2017 put Arati in a great peril as fear and hurdles made her face shocks making it almost impossible for her to maintain her five-member family.
As she was struggling to scarcely run her family taking up the job of a day labourer, a well-wisher of Arati discussed with her about the benefits of the Social Safety Net programmes of the government. Driven by a great hope of ridding herself of woes, she went to the local union parishad chairman with all documents. The chairman came to the rescue of the poverty-stricken Arati and helped her include into the social safety net programmes.
Arati is only one of the thousands of beneficiaries of social safety net programmes, launched by the present government making it the first ever all-encompassing effort to mitigate the sufferings of the vulnerable sections of the society.
Like many people-centric beneficial endeavours, the social safety net programmees in Bangladesh have been contributing to the reduction of extreme poverty by addressing a range of population groups through different forms of assistance. These include the provision of income security for the elderly, widows and persons-with-disabilities, generating temporary employment for working age men and women, and supporting the healthy development of young mothers and children.
The government has been implementing 145 programmes under the social safety net initiative of different ministries. The Awami League government introduced the programme for the first time in fiscal 1996-97.
People have escaped extreme poverty because of the social safety net, providing clear evidence that the social safety net programmes are making a substantial impact in the country’s fight against poverty.
The government has mapped out plans to bring in more people under its social safety net programme, including all disabled people as it looks to share the gains of the higher economic growth clocked in recent years with a larger section of the underprivileged in the society.
The government has allocated around Taka 5,052.37 crore in the current fiscal. The social safety net coverage is expected to increase the number of beneficiaries to around 7,7 47,600 from the existing 6,402,500.
Now, the government is providing old-age allowance, widow allowance, allowance for divorced women, disabled allowance, distressed women allowance, poor pregnant women’s allowance, and remuneration for financially insolvent freedom fighters.
It is also running the Vulnerable Group Development (VGD), Vulnerable Group Feeding (VGF), Test Relief (TR) and Food for Work programmes.
The government has kept Taka 2,400 crore for 44 lakh old aged, Taka 840 crore for 14 lakh widowed, deserted women and women repressed by husband, Taka 840 crore for 10 lakh insolvent disabled and Taka 1.80 crore for 2,500 transgender (Hijra) people across the country.
Sources said the government has decided to bring all insolvent people, who are physically challenged (disabled), under the social safety net programmes.
According to World Bank (WB), Bangladesh’s safety net programmes have shown to be effective at reducing poverty and improving gender outcomes. Despite Bangladesh’s remarkable progress of lifting 16 million people out of poverty in the past decade, to support the poor and vulnerable, the government of Bangladesh implements a number of public social safety net programmes.
Human rights activist Advocate Monowara Haque said Bangladesh is on the track of highway of development under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s leadership while it has been moving forward to become a middle-income country by 2021 and a developed one by 2041.
The social safety net programmes can help to build resilience of poor families and reduce their poverty thus making them a vital instrument for the rapid development of the country. In the absence of these safety net programmes poor people facing shocks can fall into deeper poverty, often having to sell their remaining assets or borrow more.