As many as 30 million people in the country are still living in poverty, says Finance Minister AMA Muhith.
“Our annual poverty reduction rate is yet to reach 2 percent with 30 million people living in poverty including 10 million in extreme poverty,” he said on Sunday (Oct 21).
Speaking at a programme in the city, Muhith said, “The country’s poverty rate has been reduced to 21 percent and the government aims to cut it down to 10 percent.”
“Eradicating poverty not really means that there would be no poverty in the country, rather there would be some people who would always remain below the poverty level like the physically and mentally challenged, widowed, and aged people,” said the octogenarian minister.
Muhith said the state would have to look after this section of people and some 10-14 percent such people in any country remain under the supervision of the state.
Mentioning that the poverty rate in the USA is around 14 percent while that is 7 percent in Malaysia, he said that the goal of the present Awami League government is to lower the poverty rate to at least 10 percent.
“If we can continue our ongoing operations (various poverty alleviation programmes), then we’ll be able to attain that target in the next 7 to 10 years. So, the next 7 to 10 years are very much important for us,” news agency BSS quoted Muhit.
The finance minister said after the War of Liberation in 1971, the then war-ravaged country started its journey with a poverty rate of 80 to 90 percent. “Then the basic principle of the government towards development was poverty alleviation and still it continues,” he said.