In his budget speech on June 5, Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith proposed Tk15,510cr for social safety net programs (SSNPs) for fiscal 2014-15, which is Tk2,875cr more than last year’s. The FM listed the programs that the government implemented over the last five years, these included the stipend program, the special stipend program for physically challenged students, allowances for insolvent disabled persons, old age allowances, allowances for expecting and lactating mothers, allowances for widows and divorced women, the one-house-one-farm project, the Ashrayan project, food for works program, test relief, gratuitous relief, food assistance for destitute mothers, and the char livelihood project. He further said the government also provided special allowances, employment generating training, and stipend to the socially and economically excluded Hijra, Dalit, Harija, and Bede communities with a view to mainstreaming them.
It is good to see that allocation for social protection has been increased for fiscal 2014-15 over that of last year. But the beneficiaries will hardly be benefited from the increased allocation due to a number of reasons: One, there will be an increase in the number of beneficiaries along with the increase in allocation. For instance, the government will enhance the existing number of disabled beneficiaries to 4,00,000, and that of disabled students to 50,000. So, an increase in allocation per head will be very insignificant. Two, past experience shows that purchasing power of the beneficiaries had decreased due to an increase in the prices of basic necessities of life. This neutralised the increase in allocation per head. The present trend of price hike says that this is going to be repeated in fiscal 2014-15. As a result, the increased allocation will not bring any improvements in the lives of its targeted beneficiaries.
SSNPs can be an effective tool in reducing the large-scale poverty in our country. The programs in the government and NGO sectors have so far failed to achieve the desired results due to a number of factors. These include a rapid increase of population among people living below the poverty line and a lack of coordination and effectiveness in the implementation of SSNPs.
It is a fact that there has been a declining trend in the rate of poverty in the country, but that has not made a significant difference in the total number of people living below the poverty line. According to the sixth five-year plan (SFYP) spanning 2011-15, the total number of people living below the poverty line in 1991-92 was about 56 million against a total population of 113 million. In 2010-11, the total population living below the poverty line stood at more than 47 million against a total population of 149.77 million. This means that although the poverty rate of 56.6% in 1991-92 came down to 31.5% in 2010-11, there was not a significant fall in the number of poor people. This happened due to a number of factors, which include a high birth rate among poor people, and the income inequality of the poor and the non-poor.
While there has been a drastic fall in the birth rate among people in the middle and higher echelons of society, the opposite has happened with the poor because of their lack of education, consciousness, and propensity for high standards of living. They have become victims of the vicious cycle of poverty.
From the Report of the Poverty Monitoring Survey-2004, it appears that while the monthly income of a poor household had decreased from Tk4,741 in 1999 to Tk4,488 in 2004, the monthly income of the non-poor household increased from Tk10,462 to Tk11,295. The Report on Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES)-2010 shows that the concentration of income has slightly decreased. Consequently, there has not been any significant reduction in the number of poor people.
According to the SFYP, the key challenges of implementing SSNPs are coverage issues, targeting beneficiaries, leakages, and disparity in regional distribution. The FM’s budget speech on June 5 shows that only 24.57% of poor households are under the coverage of social protection benefits. This means, three-fourths of poor households remain outside the reach of SSNPs.
The government has to depend on the union parishad (UP) for the selection of beneficiaries. There are complaints that the UP-led beneficiary selection process is overtly flawed, because the selectors often resort to nepotism, favouritism, and the allocation of cards on a partisan basis. On the other hand, UP representatives say that it is quite difficult to adhere to rules in beneficiary selection as various pressure groups, like local political leaders, influence the process.
Leakages have been a strong challenge in the successful implementation of SSNPs. According to the SFYP, leakages in the food for works program have been estimated to be 26%. Leakage in the female stipend programs is in the 10-12% range. About 20-40% of the budgetary allocations for the female secondary stipend program do not reach the beneficiaries. More such instances may be cited. Studies have also shown that while coverage is relatively low, a significant number of households gain access to multiple programs.
Bribery is another factor. Various studies have shown that it is relatively greater in programs like vulnerable group development, vulnerable group feeding, and allowances for widows and distressed women.
HIES-2005 showed that there was regional disparity in the distribution of households receiving social protection benefits. Barisal and Rajshahi divisions, with the highest incidences of poverty, did not have the correspondingly higher number of social protection beneficiaries. In contrast, Sylhet Division, with the second lowest poverty incidence, had the highest number of social beneficiaries.
Thus, an increase in allocation is not enough. What is needed is effective implementation of SSNPs, which needs a strong political will. If properly implemented, SSNPs can be a very effective tool in bringing down the present rate of poverty and extreme poverty further, and to achieve the goal stipulated in the SFYP.