Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal today proposed increasing the allocation by 5.5 per cent year-on-year for social safety net programmes carried out by the government.

The government will broaden its social safety net programmes in the upcoming national budget to continue support to the country’s marginalised population, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said yesterday.

The government is committed to using the long-overdue National Household Database (NHD) from the next fiscal year to better target the social safety net programmes, in a development that can infuse dynamism in the flat scheme.

Shamsul Huda, a beneficiary of the government’s social safety net programmes, lives in a rickety little tin- shack in Noboganga area under Paba upazila of Rajshahi.

In circuses, whenever artists perform the tightrope walking stunt, underneath them are wide nets to prevent them from falling to the ground and avoiding potentially life-threatening injuries -- lest they lose their balance on the thin rope and falls over.