Govt planning to widen social safety net coverage

The government is planning to increase the number of beneficiaries of social safety net programmes as well as the amounts of different allowances in the national budget for FY2023-24.

The decisions to increase various types of allowances given to poor people were decided at the 29th meeting, chaired by Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal, of the Cabinet Committee on Social Security Programmes on Monday.

According to an estimate of the Finance Division, the initial allocation for the social protection sector may propose to be Tk 1,35,000 crore for FY24, sources said.

In the current FY2022-23, the allocation for the sector was increased to Tk 1,13,576 crore or 2.55 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP). In FY2021-22, the sector was allocated Tk 1,07,614 crore or 3.11 per cent of the GDP.

At the meeting, the Finance Division recommended that the old-age allowance for the beneficiaries be increased by Tk 100 to Tk 600 per month in the next budget, while the number of beneficiaries will be increased by 1 lakh to 58.01 lakh and budget allocation will be increased by Tk 761.42 crore to Tk 4,205.96 crore.

Meanwhile, the Social Welfare Ministry proposed to increase the number of beneficiaries to 11,49,000 in FY24 and the allowance amount by Tk 100 per month. It proposed to increase allocation for the sub-sector by Tk 1,522 crore to Tk 4,966.53 crore in FY24.

Finance Division also recommended increasing widow and divorced women’s allowance by Tk 50 to Tk 550 per person monthly and increasing the number of beneficiaries under this scheme by 1 lakh to 25,75,000, which was 24,75,000 in FY23.

After raising the beneficiary number and allowance amount, the budget allocation will be increased by Tk 216 crore to Tk 1,711.40 crore for FY24, which was Tk 1,495.40 crore in FY23.

The Finance Division also recommended that allowance for persons with disabilities remain unchanged at Tk 850 per person every month. But the number of these beneficiaries will be increased by 5.35 lakh to 29 lakh and budgetary allocation will be increased by Tk 549.53 crore to Tk 2,978.71 crore.

However, the Social Welfare Ministry proposed to increase the monthly allowance for physically challenged people by Tk 150 to Tk 1,000 per person.

It also proposed that monthly stipends for autistic students be increased from Tk 750 to Tk 1,100 for the primary level, Tk 800 to Tk 1,300 for the secondary level, Tk 900 to Tk 1,400 for the higher secondary level, and Tk 1,300 to Tk 1,600 for tertiary level of education.

But the Finance Ministry recommended keeping the allowance and budget allocation the same for FY24. Currently, 1 lakh autistic students are under the stipends scheme, worth Tk 95.64 crore.

All the ministers of eight ministries — Liberation War Affairs, Local Government and Rural Development, Food, Social Welfare, Youth and Sports, Women and Child Affairs and Disaster Management and Relief — related to the program participated in the virtual meeting.

According to officials familiar with the matter, the increase in the social safety net coverage in the next budget has been planned as the government is looking to prioritise the welfare of the poor to appease the voters ahead of the national election scheduled for next year.

Meanwhile, allocation will increase in each sub-sector of the social security sector in the upcoming budget for FY24.

At Monday’s meeting, the Social Welfare Ministry proposed to increase the monthly allowance for poor elderly, widows and divorced women from Tk 500 to Tk 600. The amount of this allowance was last increased by Tk 100 in FY17. Since then, the amount has remained the same even though the price of daily essentials increased every year.

At present, 57,01,000 elderly people are getting monthly allowance at the rate of Tk 500. A total of Tk 3,444 crore has been allocated for this sub-sector in FY24.

With this amount of money, one person can currently buy only one egg a day and one litre of soybean oil a month, which leaves them with a deficit of Tk 47 per month. Currently, the price of 30 chicken eggs is Tk 360 and the government-fixed price of bottled soybean oil is Tk 187 per litre.

According to the annual price inflation given by the government, the products which could be bought with this amount of money eight years ago will cost Tk 700 more to buy now. The ministries also recommended increasing the per capita allocation to social security every year, in line with inflation under the National Social Security Strategy, and the number of beneficiaries of these programmes.

There has been no good news for the ultra-poor in the last seven budgets. But the government is now planning to give good news in the upcoming budget before the next national polls.

As a result, social security beneficiaries such as senior citizens, widows, destitute tea workers, and people from Hijra and Bede communities will have the opportunity to increase their purchase capacity.

The list of 115 social security programs that the Finance Division has prepared for FY23 shows that money is allocated for pensions of retired government employees, interest on savings bonds, interest waivers for banks due to Covid-19, interest subsidy for industries, and scholarships for primary school students.

These are also called social security programmes by the government. In FY24, the number of programmes may go up to 144, including the new Universal Pension Scheme.

According to sources, the meeting proposed not to increase the scope of the social security programme considering the country’s decreasing poverty rate.