Tk20.10 billion to be spent just to identify the poor

The poor have no food on their plates. Yet thousands of crores of taka are being spent just to identify them. Of this amount, the Ministry of Social Welfare will spend Tk17.94 billion on a survey to identify poor people. Another project under the Finance Division will spend Tk2.16 billion on the same task and create a “Dynamic Social Registry.”
The Social Welfare Ministry’s project will identify 13.5 million disadvantaged people. A “Family Smart Card” will also be introduced. However, hundreds of crores of taka will be spent on consultancy and travel alone. The Finance Division’s project has also allocated Tk680 million for consultancy services.
The government has no definitive list of poor people on paper. Yet projects are being undertaken one after another. Meanwhile, the social safety net system is in complete disarray. Wealthy people are taking a share of the allocations meant for the genuinely disadvantaged. According to the World Bank, wealthy people receive 31 percent of these benefits. However, initiatives to close the loopholes have yet to see the light of day.
A large sum of money has already gone to waste in the past. The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) wasted Tk6.42 billion while trying to identify the poor. The huge database created under the National Household Database (NHD) project has not been put to any use. That cycle of mistakes has yet to end. The Ministries of Social Welfare and Finance are now developing two separate databases for the same purpose. Economists view this as a direct waste of public money. They say the BBS may eventually have to step in again to resolve the resulting confusion, leading to another multimillion-taka project.
The World Bank, however, views the initiative to create a new registry positively. Jean Pesme, the institution’s regional director, praised the initiative while recently presenting the Bangladesh Development Update report. The report also highlighted the misuse of social safety net programmes.
Speaking to Agamirer Shomoy about the proposed new list to identify the poor, Dr Zahid Hossain, former lead economist at the World Bank’s Dhaka office, said, “If two ministries create the same Dynamic Social Registry, it could lead to controversy. Which one will be considered accurate? Economists may say one is correct, while NGOs may support the other. This could also create problems in policymaking. To make the initiative to develop such a Dynamic Social Registry sustainable, it should have been undertaken through the BBS. A registry is not a permanent document; it needs to be updated from time to time. If this continues, the BBS may eventually propose another project to reconcile the lists maintained by the two ministries and avoid controversy.”
“The situation has deliberately been created for no good reason. In the end, it may turn out that nothing substantial is achieved,” the economist added.
An investigation found that after the current government assumed office, the ongoing “Strengthening Social Protection for Improved Resilience, Inclusion and Targeting” project was revised to facilitate the government’s Family Card initiative. The project now includes the task of preparing a list of poor people eligible for Family Cards. In other words, a registry will be created by identifying the genuinely poor through a survey.
The project was initially approved at a cost of Tk9.0417 billion. Following the first revision, an additional Tk17.94 billion has been added, taking the total cost to Tk26.9915 billion. Of this amount, Tk15.1411 billion will come from government funds and Tk11.85 billion from a World Bank loan.
The project was originally scheduled to run from July 2025 to June 2030, and the timeline will remain unchanged. It will be implemented by the Department of Social Services under the Ministry of Social Welfare.
The major components of the project include Tk8.219 billion for survey data collectors, Tk5.5 billion for equipment to produce Family Smart Cards, Tk1.8884 billion for 18 consulting firms and Tk404 million for individual consultants. Other allocations include Tk800 million for local training, Tk100 million for travel, Tk500 million for festivals, Tk120 million for data storage and Tk120 million for printing and binding.
The Ministry of Social Welfare says the project’s primary objective is to establish a Dynamic Social Registry. This will expand access to services under the national social protection system for poor people and strengthen service delivery. It will also strengthen cash transfer programmes for the poor and expand livelihood support to improve their living standards.
Another key objective is to ensure that support under four selected government allowance programmes reaches 13.5 million beneficiaries, 60 percent of whom will be women. All beneficiaries will be selected through the Dynamic Social Registry. Seventy-five percent of safety net beneficiaries will be selected based on poverty scores. Livelihood support programmes will reach 2.5 million beneficiaries, half of whom will be women.
In line with national priority strategies and the vision of achieving developed-country status by 2041, the project aims to strengthen government capacity, expand the availability of the national social protection system for poor people and improve service delivery.
The Planning Commission said that after the project was approved, a new policy decision was made to introduce Family Cards under the government’s social protection programmes. At a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Family Cards held on June 15, 2026, it was decided that the Family Card pilot programme would be implemented in coordination with the ongoing project.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance will implement another project titled “Dynamic Social Registry.” The registry is being developed to bring order to social safety net programmes. Alongside this, the government is undertaking the “Social Protection Digital Transformation and Coordination” (SPDTCC) project to establish an effective and accessible system for tracking complaints through multiple channels and to improve accountability.
The total cost of implementing the project has been estimated at Tk2.164348 billion. Of this, Tk1.190744 billion will come from government funds and Tk973.6 million from a World Bank loan.
The project proposed by the Ministry of Finance has allocated Tk680 million for consultancy services alone. The Planning Commission questioned the justification for such a large allocation. Recently, officials involved in the project faced questions over the issue at a meeting of the Special Project Evaluation Committee (SPEC).
It was learned that the proposal allocates around Tk680 million for consultancy services. At a meeting of the Special Project Evaluation Committee (SPEC), questions were raised about the justification for this expenditure and the types of consultants to be appointed, whether local or foreign.
In addition, nearly Tk50 million, including funds from foreign loans, has been earmarked for seminars and conferences. The SPEC meeting also noted that special allowances had not been removed, despite a decision taken at an earlier Project Evaluation Committee (PEC) meeting. An explanation was sought as to why these allowances had been retained.
Following the completion of the processing procedures and approval at a meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC), the Finance Division will implement the project between this year and March 2031.
The project's main activities include improving targeting accuracy, expanding coverage, establishing interoperability, strengthening coordination with line ministries and improving the delivery system of the national social protection programmes.
It will also facilitate seamless data exchange and integration across government platforms. Real-time dashboards and automated verification systems will be introduced to reduce manual errors and improve beneficiary targeting, screening, selection, service delivery efficiency and transparency.
The project will build capacity for data-driven decision-making through extensive data analysis, visualisation tools and research outputs to guide future policies and programme design. Management Information System (MIS) infrastructure, including the unified registry, the Government-to-Person (G2P) payment platform and line ministry systems, will be upgraded, maintained and made sustainable.
In addition, the capacity of government employees to operate MIS platforms will be strengthened through structured training and technical assistance. Documentation and publications will also be prepared to guide the future direction of social protection.
Tk6.42 Billion Wasted Previously
A sum of Tk6.42 billion had previously been wasted in collecting information about poor people. In 2013, the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) undertook the National Household Database (NHD) project, but it was never completed. Nevertheless, Tk6.42 billion was spent on it. The project cost had been increased to Tk7.2735 billion.
After updating information at the field level, the BBS assigned a company named Xerox India the responsibility of developing a Management Information System (MIS) for database management. However, the company partially revised data from 14 districts and left the data from 50 districts incomplete before collecting Tk1.1244 billion and disappearing.
As a result, despite spending hundreds of crores of taka, the government failed to produce a list of poor people.
Agamirer Shomoy spoke with Md. Firoz Sarkar, secretary of the Statistics and Informatics Division, about the new project to identify poor people. He said, “The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics has the capacity to carry out this work. However, the government decided to assign the responsibility to the Ministry of Social Welfare. In this case, the ministry is conducting the survey in accordance with the law after obtaining permission from us.”
Asked about the huge expenditure on previous surveys, the secretary of the Statistics and Informatics Division said, “I have only recently joined the position. Therefore, I cannot say much about the previous surveys.”