Bangladesh launches employment generation programme for poor

DHAKA: The Bangladeshi government Monday launched a 100-day Employment Generation Program by providing temporary jobs to the unemployed poor people in rural areas across the country for at least 100 days.

Speaking at a press conference Monday, food adviser of the caretaker government A M M Shawkat Ali said some 10 million poor people will benefit from the program. Under the program at the initial stage, he said job opportunities will be created locally for two million unemployed poor with a daily remuneration of 100 taka (about 1.43 U.S. dollars) per person.

Beneficiaries, aged between 18 and 50 years old, who cannot be provided any jobs will, however, be entitled to an unemployment allowance of 40 taka per day for up to 30 days. If the beneficiary is still unable to secure employment beyond 30 days then the allowance would be increased to 50 taka a day for the remaining period of the scheme.

Twenty days of a month will be counted as working days and accordingly the program will continue for five months. In the current fiscal (July 2008-June 2009) budget, the government has allocated 20 billion taka (about 285.7 million U.S. dollars) to finance the program.(1 U.S. dollar equals about 70 taka).

Tuesday, Xinhua