BIDS research..

During the Corona period, more than one and a half crore people became poor !


Long-term holidays and lockdowns in the country to deal with the corona outbreak have severely damaged the income of the common man. If this level of loss is considered to be of moderate level, then 16 million people have come below the poverty line in the country. And if the maximum limit of income loss is taken, then the number of poor people in the country will increase to 35.4 million. Such information has been mentioned in the study of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS).
On Wednesday, BIDS organized a virtual dialogue on the situation of Covid-19, its impact and how to deal with it. The chief guest was Planning Minister MA Mannan. BIDS Director General KAS Murshid also spoke on the occasion. Md. Mushtaq Hossain, Planning Secretary Asadul Islam. BIDS Research Director Binayak Sen, Researchers Manjur Hossain, Kazi Iqbal and Nahyan Azad Tusi made presentations in the light of various studies.

Dr. Binayak Sen said that in the last lockdown, 16 million people in the country have fallen below the poverty line. This number has been found to be moderate in the decline of the income of the common man. From 2010 to 2016, the number of poor people in these areas has increased. The aid announced by the government for the poor in Corona is for those who are close to the poverty line. But those who are already below the poverty line have suffered the most at this time. Without Covid-19, Bangladesh would have been able to alleviate poverty before 2030. But in order to eradicate poverty in the current situation, it is necessary to achieve an average growth of over 6 percent in the next one decade.


On the poverty situation, the planning minister said, "We have to work for many more years to alleviate poverty. We are worried about it." However, the gap that we had at the beginning in dealing with Corona has narrowed. In a presentation on incentives in the SME sector, researcher Manjur Hossain mentioned that only 36 percent of SME entrepreneurs in the country can take bank loans. Entrepreneurs in the SME sector do not get bank loans due to lack of supporting documents. It remains to be seen how useful the BDT 20,000 crore incentive will be for them. He thinks it would not be right to give a bank guarantee in the current situation of defaulted loans.

Researcher Nahyan Azad Tusi, citing data from an online survey, said 58 percent of respondents said their income had dropped in the lockdown. Low-income people have suffered the most. 19 percent of low-income people said their income has dropped to 75 percent . Professor SR Osmani said that now the focus should be on the quality of life of the common man rather than focusing on GDP. He emphasized on reducing the poverty rate by reaching out to cash.