Without doing any assessment of its impact, rural development and cooperatives division spent Tk1,492 crore on ‘Ekti Bari Ekti Khamar (One House One Farm) project in last three years.
Nearly Tk1,670 crore had already been allotted for the second phase of the project with a view to improving the living standards of rural poor people by organising them under zonal cooperative societies.
Although the project authority claims its success, they do not have any specific example of any success stories across the country.
National Project Director Proshanta Kumar Roy, also additional secretary of the division, admitted that the authority concerned had made a “mistake”.
He told the Dhaka Tribune recently that they should have a study report on the success and beneficiaries of the project. But they are yet to carry out any survey or assessment in this regard.
“The implementation, monitoring and evaluation division did survey on only 340 beneficiary families in 2012. The survey was carried out on a small number of beneficiaries. It did not reflect the total success. So, the project authority is planning to do an impact survey,” he added.
The project director informed that they are set to communicate with Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies or any credible research organisation to make a neutral assessment of the project.
The authority could form around 36,000 societies until April 30, involving around 2,160,000 families under the project. It may exceed 2,500,000 by June 30. The beneficiaries of the project are depositing Tk20-Tk200 per month in their zonal societies.
The members of the societies had already deposited Tk570 crore in society accounts. The government had also deposited the same amount of money in those accounts as bonus according to the terms and conditions of the project.
The members can borrow Tk10,000-Tk30,000 from the societies with approval by UNOs for investment in development projects or farming.
