A total of 51,470 distressed women, engaged in a five-year project under the Rural Employment and Road Maintenance Programme (RERMP) of the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED), have turned jobless after completion of the project on June 30.
The matter surfaced at a cheque and certificate distribution programme of the project in Barisal sadar upazila recently. The women received cheques of Tk22,000-75,000 from their deposits after deducting the loan withdrawn from savings amounts.
Stakeholders of the project that focuses on rural economic growth and poverty reduction across the country urged to extend the tenure of the project.
The five-year project was initiated in 64 districts on July 1, 2008 for the employment of distressed poverty-ridden women so that they could attain self-sufficiency.
Under the project, 10 women from each union and 30 in each monga (famine-like situation) affected unions worked for five years, totalling 51,470 women from 4,498 unions. They did maintenance work of 98,000km roads and planted 2.25m trees.
On behalf of the stakeholders, Nurjahan Begum of Karapur village under sadar upazila said she had deposited some money from her income by doing tree plantation and road maintenance works. She received training poultry and cattle farming, fish cultivation and agriculture production.
Now she is thinking of launching a small business on her own, Nurjahan said. She called for the project’s extension so that more women could be benefited.
LGED officials, meanwhile, expressed hope that the stakeholders of the project could lead a better life by engaging themselves in some income-generating activities with the savings.
The programme was presided over by Hafizur Rahman, executive engineer of sadar upazila LGED. Deputy Commissioner Shahidul Alam and sadar upazila Chairman Azizul Huq Akkas also addressed the event.
