HIES drags as cost likely to go up

The government is conducting Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) across the country to take poverty reduction as a major development challenge but it’s not seeing the end by any means.

Starting in 2020, the survey work has been going on for the last three years. And now, the Statistics and Informatics Division (SID) of the Planning Ministry has proposed to the Finance Ministry to increase the HIES cost by 14.67 per cent and extend its duration by another year.

The Tk 12.32 crore 17th HIES project is supposed to end in December this year. But SID is now seeking to extend its duration until December 2023, taking it into the fourth year, according to the proposal.

It said SID also wants the project’s cost increased by Tk 1,80,73,000 to Tk 14,12,80,000. The survey is being conducted in approximately 14,400 urban and rural households across the country.

According to Project Director Dr Dipankar Roy, Tk 5 lakh was allocated for this project in FY2020-21.

At that time, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it was not possible to start the activities at the field level on time.

For this, the yearlong survey started two years after the scheduled time and that’s why the survey’s duration needs to be extended by one year, he told a meeting of the project’s steering committee recently.

The HIES is conducted every five years. Data was collected in the first phase in June 2021 but the survey is not going to finish even in a year and a half, until December this year. As a result, the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) has fallen behind in releasing the data of the survey.

The last survey was conducted in 2016. It was completed in two years.

Based on HIES, the government comes up with Poverty Analysis, Five Year Plan, Vision Plan, Rupkolpo 2041, Delta Plan 2100, and Social Security Strategy (which includes widow, old age and disability allowances, Test Relief, Kajer Binimoye Khadyo Kabikha and Kajer Binimoye Taka).

The progress report of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the United Nations is also prepared based on this survey. The World Bank is providing technical assistance in this survey conducted by BBS.

Delay hindering decisions

People concerned consider the survey very important in the backdrop of the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and the ongoing global economic crisis because the government decides on measures action based on its data.

But BBS is yet to get all the updated data on important issues like poverty and unemployment rates among the country’s population and various activities are going on based on information that is several years old. Due to that, the government is not able to plan properly and Bangladesh is lagging in many international ratings.

BBS officials say the HIES, which is one of the most important surveys BBS conduct, is delayed due to various reasons including a manpower crisis. It will be more than one year to gather all the new information.