Planning Minister MA Mannan on Monday said that the government's wider social safety net programs helped decrease inflation in September, which had apparently shot up in August.
The minister, however, refrained from revealing the inflation figures of August and September, citing procedures.
The minister was speaking at the inauguration of a training course on "Post-enumeration check of the Population and Household Census 2022" at Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) in the capital.
Mannan at the program said that the inflation data of the past two months -- when price spirals peaked -- would be released within a few days.
He mentioned a special recipe for relief of the down-and-outs from the bite of burning inflation amid price rises, in lockstep with a global crunch.
“The government has been providing essential products at lower prices to 10 million families across the country. Some forty million people are benefiting from this family card safety-net program,” he said.
“Also, some other programs and policies of the government helped to ease the inflationary pressure last month, September, despite a higher figure in August.”
Mannan said the delay in revealing inflation data is being caused by some procedural formalities.
The BIDS has been assigned for post-enumeration check (PEC) of the population census, conducted by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).
The institute will be collecting data in 354 sample areas across the country on October 10-16 for the crosscheck of the head and house counts.
Inflation had risen in the last few months by overheated global oil prices and of other products, also as the economic rebound following Covid-19 pandemic was upended by the Ukraine war.
Earlier in July, the BBS in preliminary census data showed that Bangladesh is home to 165.16 million people.
The country's population has increased by 15.38 million from 149.77 million 11 years ago in 2011, according to the preliminary findings in the latest census.
Meanwhile, State Minister for Planning Prof Shamsul Alam said the BBS data could be more authentic and quality one if the bureau could work more independently.
"We hope the BBS will work more independently and provide quality data in the future," he added.
The training program was also attended by planning secretary Mamun-Al-Rashid, information and informatics division secretary Shahnaj Arefin, BBS director general Matiur Rahman and Population and Housing Census 2022 project director Dildar Hossain.
