Business Desk :
Although Bangladesh has been able to cut the rate of poverty in its 50 years of journey, inequality has increased, said noted Economist Nurul Islam.
“Poverty has reduced in Bangladesh, all the statistics have proved it, but inequality has increased,” he said in his keynote at the inaugural of the “Annual BIDS Conference on Development” at the Lakeshore Hotel in Dhaka’s Gulshan.
Nurul, now emeritus fellow of International Food Policy Research Institute, was deputy chairman of the first Planning Commission (1972-75) formed after the independence in 1971.
The Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) organised the three-day international conference, marking the 50 years of independence of Bangladesh.
“But I am not worried about it because poverty reduction is a major issue,” he said.
If the number of people below the poverty line decreases and if the number of people who are above the poverty line goes up, automatically inequality increases, he added.
Nurul said higher inequality in income could lead to the export of capital abroad.
Population control policy implemented with the help of NGOs and government agency was a major success for the country, he added.
Binayak Sen, director general of the BIDS, said early pessimism regarding the country’s oppressive agrarian structure lack of technological progress, endemic food scarcity and mass poverty, lack of private entrepreneurship and weak state and weak industrial policy have later proved to be incorrect as the country has surpassed neighbouring India and Pakistan in many economic indicators.
