Paltry safety net coverage for the poor: A widow gets Tk 550 a month!

Maleka Begum, 70, carries the weight of nearly five decades of widowhood on her shoulders. Since her husband Abul Hossain Gazi died in 1972, her life has been a constant struggle.
As long as her health permitted, she worked as a housemaid or a construction worker to raise her son, her only child. The grueling work took its toll on her body, which was failing as she grew older. She had been looking for some support.

Then, after years of pleading with local officials and elected representatives, the Patuakhali woman got a widow allowance card under the government’s social safety net programme about a decade ago.
It was Tk 300 per month then; it’s Tk 550 now.
“I get Tk 1,650 every three months via my mobile. It runs out instantly. What can you buy with such little money when prices of everything are so high?” she told The Daily Star by phone on Tuesday from Auliapur village.

Her son Khokon Gazi, 50, is a day labourer, who shifts between odd jobs. But even odd jobs are hard to come by in this climate-vulnerable coastal area, one of the poorest districts in southern Bangladesh. Whenever he finds work, he supports his mother with whatever little he can.
But Maleka perhaps is one of the luckiest to get the paltry amount of Tk 1,650 every three months. Many don’t get even that.

Azima Bibi, 60, from Bogura’s Shahjahanpur area for example has been desperately trying to have her name enlisted for elderly allowance. She has not been successful so far.
“I have gone to the local union parishad member so many times for an update. Every time, he says, ‘your name is not on the list yet,'” said Azima, who works as a housemaid and whose husband has no work. “I am disappointed.”
Economists and poverty experts share her disappointment, and point out that both the size and amount of the coverage need a serious revisit to make the safety net programmes useful for the poor and disadvantaged groups such as widows, the elderly, and persons with disability.
They say expansion of social safety net is more urgent at times of high inflation, which hits the poor the hardest as their purchasing power takes the heaviest blow.

An analysis by Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) of the average daily prices of 34 essential food items in Dhaka from 1 January 2019 to 19 May 2024 shows that prices increased from 10 percent to 310 percent during this period. The analysis was based on data from Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB).
WHO GETS WHAT

According to the latest Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) 2022 data, 18.7 percent or 3.17 crore people are poor (those living above $2.15 a day) and 5.6 percent or 95 lakh people are extremely poor (those living below $2.15 a day).
Currently, there are 140 social security programmes worth Tk 136,026 crore to provide a cushion to various groups, including the poor, extreme poor and the lower income people, according to budget data.
However, nearly half of this money is spent on retirement benefits of government employees and interest payment of savings schemes.
In the current fiscal year, for example, Tk 36,580 crore has been allocated for payment of pension for government employees and Tk 8,828.32 crore for interest payment of savings certificates.
In comparison, the poor get paltry.
Data from social welfare ministry show the monthly allowance for widows, the elderly and persons with physical disabilities — they are among the most vulnerable — are Tk 550, Tk 600 and Tk 850.
Widow allowance was initiated in FY 1999 with just Tk 100 a month for 4 lakh people. In the last 25 years, it has seen an increase of Tk 450.
Old age allowance, launched a year earlier also with Tk 100 a month for 4 lakh people, rose by Tk 500 since, the data show.
Disability allowance was initiated in FY 2006 with Tk 200 a month for 1 lakh people. It took 14 years to see a rise of Tk 650.
“We can hardly buy five kgs of rice and one kg of fish with this money. That’s all,” said Sames Uddin, a recipient of old age allowance from Sirajganj’s Sadar upazila.
LEFT OUT
Then there are selection errors that leave many eligible people out of the coverage.
Last year, a CPD study titled “Social Safety Net Budget of Bangladesh: Catching Some, Missing Many” found that an estimated 33 lakh elderly people and 25 lakh widows eligible for assistance are not covered by the programme.
“The low allocation per beneficiary per month raises questions about the effectiveness of Bangladesh’s overall social protection strategy. It remains unclear why Bangladesh has been pursuing a large number of small programmes spread out over many different ministries and divisions of the government, budget after budget,” said the report, published in July this year.
Talking to The Daily Star yesterday, Prof Selim Raihan echoed this sentiment and said the government should rather focus on bringing the disadvantaged groups out of poverty line through solid rehabilitation programmes instead of handing out such insufficient allowance.
“Besides, there are many selection errors, meaning many ineligible people are receiving the allowance instead of eligible disadvantaged people. The social security programmes should be revisited as there are many overlaps,” said Prof Selim, also executive director of South Asian Network and Economic Modeling (Sanem).
Abu Saleh Mostafa Kamal, director general of Department of Social Welfare, acknowledged that the allowance under the safety net is inadequate, but insisted that the money still provides a critical support at individual levels.
About the limited coverage, he said, “The government is expanding the coverage gradually. As part of this, nearly five lakh people have been added to the beneficiaries’ list this year. Top policymakers can say more about expanding the coverage and increasing the amount.”
But Khokon Gazi, Maleka Begum’s son, needs an immediate respite.
“How can we survive when a kg of pointed gourd costs Tk 80 and an egg Tk 16?” he said.
[Mostafa Shabuj from Bogura and Sohrab Hossain from Patuakhali contributed to this report.]