‘Provide social security to urban poor’

The government should increase budgetary allocations and take fresh initiatives for the urban poor under the national social safety net programmes, according to experts. 

They also urged to ensure the creation of a database of ultra-poor urban people and allocate a ward-wise budget in the urban areas so that all the floating poor people come under the coverage.

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The call came at a national dialogue on "Urban Poverty Reduction: Allocation and Increase of Social Safety Net Programmes" organised by non-government organisation the Coalition for the Urban Poor (CUP) at National Press Club on Sunday.

"At present, Bangladesh has over 115 social safety net programmes across the country aiming to reduce poverty. Of them, only 3 to 4 or a handful of programmes are for the urban poor," said Aminur Rasul Babul, adviser (advocacy & programme) of the CUP.

"It is very inadequate and, in most cases, the ultra poor have little access to it," he said.

Babul went on to say that a large group of the ultra poor were widows living in inhumane conditions in the urban areas as they were being deprived of this service.

The city's street dwellers do not get citizen identity cards such as birth certificates and national identity cards as they do not have addresses, thereby depriving them of all civil rights, he added.

Although the urban poor have lost jobs the most and been affected by Covid-19 in spite of a lot of incentives from the government, the urban ultra-poor population has been left out of it, he said.

Prof MM Akash, chairman of the economics department at the University of Dhaka, said an allowance for women do not exist in the urban areas while the beneficiary lists in the rural areas were not correct.

"The rural beneficiary list is faulty, which is full of nepotism," he said.

The urban poor who do not have any national identity card will definitely drop out from the government's social safety net programmes, said Prof Akash.

"No matter how many programmes the government takes up, it will not help the urban poor people unless they come under the government list," he said.

Khondker Rebaka Sun-Yat, executive director of the CUP, Md Shamsuddoha, chief executive of the Center for Participatory Research and Development, and Salauddin Bablu, business editor of SATV, spoke at the event.