Adbus Salam, a marginal farmer-cum-small trader, of village Paqulla of Rashidpur union under Jamalpur Sadar, gave up after he failed to manage Tk250,000 he needed to send his son to Qatar as a migrant worker recently.
His son, Sanwar, a XII grade student at a local college, while browsing the internet, stumbled on the website of the government's Karmasangsthan Bank, which has on display a scheme to finance people aspiring to go abroad under 'Worker Visa' category.
Sanwar read through the portion titled 'Bideshe Karmasangsthan Rin Karmosuchi' (loan scheme for employment abroad) on the website and found that the bank had an offer of loan extending up to Tk300,000 for an aspirant migrant worker.
Now, being optimistic about getting finance, he managed the phone number of the manager of the bank's nearby branch at Jamalpur town from the bank's website and talked to the branch manager Sujat Kabir over phone.
To his utter disappointment, he came to know that the bank never introduced the scheme beyond the policy phase, and he was not given any further clarification by the branch official.
While contacted by the Dhaka Tribune reporter in the guise of Sanwar's guardian, Sujat Kabir said: "The product was not launched as the government meantime introduced a dedicated bank namely Probashi Kallyan Bank (Expatriate Welfare Bank) to facilitate financing to aspirant migrant workers. So, we brought the product to a halt."
Shaidul Islam, Jamalpur regional manager of Karmasangsthan Bank, said that the bank had made a policy framework for operation of the loan product in 2012-13, which was not finalized later on.
"One of the major reasons for not introducing the product was lack of infrastructure and manpower essential to verify authenticity and validity of visa of the applicant migrant worker," he pointed out.
Echoing the aforementioned officials, managing director Kazi Sanaul Hoq at the bank's head office at Rajuk Avenue in the capital said the reason why they did not launch the loan scheme was that the government established Probashi Kallyan Bank for the migrant workers to facilitate them with sufficient loan.
"I have joined recently. This bank's basic duty is to finance unemployed people on the self-employment projects of individuals and group of individuals under prescribed terms and conditions," he said.
The bank authorities might not want to divert their limited resource to the purposes other than generating local employment, he added.
Md Ashadul islam, a senior secretary to Financial Institution Division, in a recent program said that officials and staffers of government-run financial institutions like Karmasangsthan Bank were very much conservative as regards receiving loan applications and providing proper counseling to applicants or visitors to their branches.
He was speaking on overall status of access to finance for generating employment in the country.
"I have seen that the laws with regard to channeling finance to generate employment are complicated. Therefore, those need to be simplified and liberalized," he added.