The government has only spent 60 per cent of the money allocated in last year's budget towards running its safety-net programmes, including those involving 'food for work' and 'vulnerable group feeding', with the current fiscal year ending in June.
'We have on an average spent around 60 per cent of the funds for social safety-net programmes, mainly food for work and 'test relief' although we only have one month left in the current fiscal year,' a senior official at the food ministry told New Age on Thursday.
He said that 47 per cent of the funds allocated for the food for work programme to repair rural infrastructure and 21 per cent for the vulnerable group feeding programme for the ultra poor had been spent.
However, he noted that Tk 990 crore of the Tk 1,000 crore employment generation programme for destitute people in rural areas – representing 99 per cent of the total – had been released.
The process of releasing safety-net funds, the responsibility of the food ministry, was suspended when the Election Commission started holding the overdue polls to the local government bodies, which are scheduled to be completed by July, 2011, according to the official.
The ongoing harvest has also brought a halt to a number of programmes.
'We are trying to extend coverage of the safety-net programmes by providing poor people with fair price cards to ensure their food security and on the other hand reducing the vulnerable group feeding programme coverage so that the poor are not dependent on charity,' food minister Muhammad Abdur Razzaque told New Age.
He said that the open
market sale of rice at a subsidised rate of Tk 24 a kilogram had been expanded to upazila and union levels across the country and a total of 77 lakh fair price cards were distributed among destitute families.
The fair price card allows a family to buy up to 20 kilograms of rice a month at the subsidised price.
Using a VGF card, each poverty-hit family gets up to 30 kilograms a month of rice free of cost.
The minister said that the food for work and the test relief programmes, which involve paying workers for their work in infrastructure projects, were stopped during the harvesting period in the rural areas. 'Farmers will not allow road repair work now as they are harvesting their crops…So the work will resume soon,' he added.
In the 2010-11 fiscal year, the government allocated to the food ministry Tk 279 crore along with 90,000 tonnes of wheat against the food for work programme and Tk 279 crore with one lakh tonnes of wheat for the test relief programmes.
A total of Tk 1,535.98 crore was allocated for the VGF programme for the ultra-poor in rural areas – with only 21 per cent having been spent till April, according to official records.
Officials and local representatives confirmed to New Age that the safety-net programmes, along with many development programmes, have stopped due to elections to union parishads, the lowest tier of the local government system.
'Release of funds for the safety-net programmes – food for work and test relief – has been suspended due to the elections to the union parishads,' said chairman of the Aluary union parishad in Dinajpur, Nabiul Hossain. Even activities under the annual development programmes came to a halt at the union level, he added.
Abdul Latif, chairman of Chatnai union parishad in Nilphamari, also said they did not have work to do under any safety-net programmes at present.
Source: New Age
