UNB, Dhaka :
Almost half the beneficiaries of the government-sponsored Old Age Allowance spend their full receipt in purchasing medicines, says a study.
The Old Age Allowance is meant for protecting poor elderly people from insecurity and the monthly transfer is very low-Tk 300 per month. These poor elderly people have to spend this low allowance on food and healthcare.
The study also reveals that the beneficiaries of the Social Safety Net Programme (SSNP) spend 39 and 28 percents of their SSNP supports on consumption and healthcare respectively, followed by household items (13 pc), investment (8 pc), school cost (5 pc), others (5 pc) and savings (2 pc).
Principal investigator Dr Ismat Ara Begum, and co-investigators Prof Dr Shaheen Akter, Dr Mohammad Jahangir Alam and Prof Noor Md Rahmatullah jointly conducted the study, titled ‘Social Safety Nets and Productive Outcomes: Evidence and Implications for Bangladesh’.
The study was carried out with financial support from the National Food Policy Capacity Strengthening Programme (NFPCSP). The NFPCSP is being implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and the Ministry of Food with financial support from the European Union and USAID.
During the community-level field survey concluded in February 2014, data was collected from Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Barisal, Sylhet and Khulna divisions.
The study shows that the Old Age Allowance and allowance for widowed, deserted and destitute are casting a positive impact on some productive outcomes, but that is not that much significant.
Many of the male and female beneficiaries, the study says, reallocated their labour from agricultural activities to non-agricultural ones. Non-agricultural activities include, rickshaw-van pulling, day-labour, running small business, paddling of vegetables or daily essentials.
The study further reveals that investment avenues of SSNs are mainly starting small businesses such as grocery shop, library, cloth store, dispensary, electronics shop, tea stall, vegetable shop and cosmetics shop.
More than 50 percent of SSNP beneficiaries mentioned that they faced shocks while the increased prices of daily commodities.
One major objective of the government’s National Food Policy 2006 is to enhance the coverage of the Social Safety Net Programmes targeting the hardcore poor and disadvantaged groups and their effective implementation.
Currently, 30.1 percent of rural household receive SSNP benefit (HIES 2010), which was 13 percent in 2005.
In 2012-13 fiscal, Tk 227.5 billion was allocated under the Social Protection and Empowerment.
