Md Asaduz Zaman

Apart from export and remittance earnings, the government has placed importance on securing more foreign funding in the current fiscal year to shield the country’s foreign currency reserves from depletion. 

Scaling up public food distribution programmes for the poor and the vulnerable is the need of the hour -- given the cost of living crisis. But the government seems to be shying away from stepping up to this task.

The government plans to take up a large-scale sanitation and waste-management project, which will focus on 25 municipalities to ensure a safe, sustainable, and inclusive sanitation system.

Although the overall length of a road linking the Matarbari coal-based power plant in Maheshkhali upazila to Cox’s Bazar town has reduced, the construction cost is set to increase by more 70 per cent from the initial estimate owing to poor feasibility studies.

The government has a plan to undertake a Tk 5,651-crore project to construct a 15.31km elevated road in the haor region of Kishoreganj to establish the district’s direct road links with Dhaka, Sylhet and other districts.

Bangladesh sent the highest number of migrant workers in its history in 2022 thanks to a surge in demand for labourers in the Middle Eastern countries but remittance receipts did not go up proportionately.  

Constructing Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Tunnel under the Karnaphuli river in Chattogram is set to turn costlier apparently for poor feasibility studies as the need for new components have arisen alongside adjustments to the rise in the price of the US dollar. 

The financial account of the balance of payments (BoP) turned negative in the first five months of the current fiscal year, highlighting the challenges Bangladesh is facing in protecting its foreign currency reserves from depletion as funds outflows exceeded inflows. 

A retired secondary school teacher in Satkhira not entitled to pensions had planned to use a portion of other service benefits to purchase savings certificates to meet some of his family expenses with the interest income.  

Although the inflation rate in Bangladesh has maintained a downward trend for the past four months, it is still high enough to affect those living in the middle-income category and below, experts say. 

Data on poverty levels in Bangladesh will be available by the end of March this year as the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) completed its Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES)-2022 last Friday.

When Abdul Haque woke up at dawn yesterday, not even the bone-chilling cold or the fog could stop him from getting out onto the field.

A staggering three-fourths of households in Bangladesh think they do not need access to the internet as the required data and devices are still too expensive for them, according to a survey by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).

Just two years back when the pandemic arose, Bangladesh’s healthcare sector faced a dreadful situation with its inadequate equipment and infrastructural facilities.

A project for lighting various roads in the Chattogram City Corporation areas has not seen a single percent of progress in three and a half years.

The production of some high-value exotic fruits in Bangladesh has increased significantly in the past several years as many farmers have jumped on the bandwagon of growing them commercially since they fetch higher profits. 

Mohammad Omar Faruque, 27, a graduate of Jahangirnagar University, was hoping to pursue his master’s in the United Kingdom.

A new study has unearthed flaws in the beneficiary selection under the “Amar Bari, Amar Khamar (My house, My farm)” project as it found the inclusion of ineligible households in the much-hyped scheme. 

Although four months have already passed in the current fiscal year, four out of 56 ministries and divisions are yet to spend 1 per cent of the allocations they received under the Annual Development Programme (ADP).

The cost of Bangladesh’s third submarine cable project is set to increase by 52.23 per cent as double the bandwidth capacity is being availed while dollar prices are soaring.