Dhaka, Friday


29 March 2024


Business Insider Bangladesh

Monthly perks for disabled to rise from next fiscal year

Asif Showkat Kallol || BusinessInsider

Published: 18:28, 22 May 2022   Update: 18:42, 22 May 2022
Monthly perks for disabled to rise from next fiscal year

Graphics: Business Insider Bangladesh

The government has decided to nominally increase monthly allowances of the disabled people by Tk 100 to Tk 850, an official of the finance ministry said.

The increment is only 13.33 percent or half inflation the economy has been experiencing now.

After listening to various quarters, the government decided to raise the perks of the disabled. The government has resolved to increase the monthly allowance of those people from Tk 750 to Tk 850 in a last moment’s change to its social safety net programme.

An official, who is involved in the next fiscal year’s budget preparation, said the government is now under tremendous pressure because of fund crunch but still it has taken initiative to raise the monthly allowance of the insolvent disabled people.

“It is true the inflation rates have gone up in the last two years amid Covid-19 pandemic but the problem is the government lacks funds,” the official, who requested anonymity, said.

He said: “We hope that the rate of the allowances will definitely be enhanced before the national election which is supposed to be held in 2023 or in the following year,” he said.

The point-to-point inflation in Bangladesh has reached 6.29 percent in April. With this, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics recorded over 6 percent inflation for the three consecutive months, until April.

“It is useless to increase the disable people’s social safety net allowances by only 13 percent when the official inflation rate is half of the raise,” former finance adviser AB Mirza Azizul Islam told the Business Insider Bangladesh.

As per social welfare ministry, the number of the disabled people in 2020-21 FY was 20.08 lakh and that their allowances stood at Tk 1,820 crore.

It is likely that the number of beneficiaries will be increased by 3 lakh in the next fiscal year. 

Other than the disabled, social protection benefits for the elderly citizens, widows, destitute tea workers, the third gender community and the snake-charmer nomad people could not be raised. These people will have to skimp on their spending for their daily essentials.

The last time the government had raised their allowances by Tk 100 to Tk 500 in 2016-2017 fiscal year. Since then, prices of daily commodities have been going up with each passing year but not their allowances.

After introducing the universal pension scheme, the number of the beneficiaries will fall drastically in 2023-24 fiscal year, officials hoped.

“I have requested the government to increase the disability allowance from Tk 750 to Tk 1,000. The Prime Minister has responded positively. I hope the finance minister will definitely consider it in his budget proposal. But the finance division informed me that it is not possible to increase Tk 250 at one go,” The planning minister Abdul Mannan told local media.

The outlay for social safety net in 2022-2023 will see a Tk 5,386 crore rise from what was earmarked for the current fiscal year. But, a major portion of it will be spent on pensions of the retired public employees and salaries and allowances to those involved in implementing the social safety net programmes.

In the next budget, Tk 1,13,000 crore is being proposed for social safety net as against Tk 1,07,614 crore in the current fiscal year.

The sector sees only a 5% uptick in its budget allocation though point-to-point inflation rose to 6.22% in March according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.

The FY23 allocation for pension payout amounted to Tk 27,800 crore, which is Tk 1,110 crore higher than this fiscal year’s allotment.

The social safety allocation is going to increase in terms of money in the new fiscal year but it will decrease in proportion to the government’s total expenditure.

The Centre for Policy Dialogue in its budget recommendations said given the high food price inflation and rise in living cost, the government should increase the amount of allowance, particularly for the elderly, widows and the marginalised women folks, immediately.

 

Nagad
Monetary Policy Stance
Budget 2020-21
Walton