Home ›› 04 Jun 2023 ›› Corporate
Nagad, a leading mobile financial service provider in Bangladesh, has welcomed the government’s move to increase the social safety net allocation in the national budget for the fiscal year 2023-2024.
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal has proposed a budgetary allocation of Tk 1,26,272 crore in the next fiscal year for the social security programmes, up by a little over 11 per cent from the current fiscal year’s Tk 113,576 crore.
In this way, the size of social security allocation will be 16.58 per cent of the total budget allocation and 2.52 per cent of GDP.
The finance minister has also proposed increasing beneficiaries by more than 8.5 lakh, which is a very timely move to give breathing space to the poor who are grappling with rising costs of daily necessities.
He has also proposed that monthly allowances be raised by Tk 50 to Tk 200 in different categories of safety net allowances, read the budget documents.
Welcoming this move, Tanvir A Mishuk, founder and managing director of Nagad Limited, said, “This timely move will give poor people some relief during this tough time. Digital disbursements of such funds are done promptly while ensuring transparency.”
From the beginning Nagad had been the first choice for the government in disbursing government allowances, education stipends and other cash aid as we ensured transparency by plugging all anomalies, he added.
In 2021 and 2022, Nagad successfully disbursed 75 per cent of all the social safety nets allowances, such as old-age allowance, widow allowance, allowance for the underprivileged with special needs and students with special needs, Bede community development allowance and transgender community development allowance.
Besides, Nagad also disburses 100 per cent of primary education stipends, stipends under the Prime Minister’s educational assistance trust, tea garden workers’ living standard allowance, backward community development allowance, disabled allowance, and others.
In Covid-19 times, Nagad also twice disbursed the majority portions of the Prime Minister’s Eid gifts – Tk 2,500 each – among poor families. And all these have made Nagad the top choice for government disbursements.
