The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics in its Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2010 has said that per capita income in 2010 increased to Tk 30,636 or $418.
The Bangladesh Economic Survey 2011 given with the budget proposal for the 2011–2012 financial year, however, has showed that per capita income in 2010–11 increased to $818 or more than Tk 57,000.
The statistics bureau launched the HIES 2010 survey report at a workshop at the Sonargaon Hotel in Dhaka on Wednesday.
Asked about the incongruity between the findings of the statistics bureau and the economic survey, the statistics division secretary, Riti Ibrahim, told news agency Bdnews24.com that she did not know where the Bangladesh Economic Survey had got its data from.
'Only the BBS conducts the household income and expenditure survey and it has found out that monthly per capita income is Tk 2,553 and if it is multiplied by 12, one can get the yearly figure,' the news agency quoted Riti as saying.
The HIES 2010 survey says that the monthly per capita income increased to Tk 2,553 in 2010 which was Tk 1,486 in 2005.
The survey also says that as the per capital income has increased, poverty also decreased.
The survey also says that poverty lines decreased in the Dhaka region to 30.5 per cent in 2010 from 32.1 per cent in 2005 which is 'the lowest reduction.'
The Rajshahi region reduced poverty compared with Dhaka by a huge percentage as Rajshahi's poverty line fell down to 35.7 per cent in 2010 which was 51.2 per cent in 2005.
The survey was conducted on 12,240 households — 7,840 households in rural areas and 4,400 in urban areas.
The planning minister, AK Khandkar, said that the survey would be help to work the plan for the sixth Five Year Plan.
The experts who attended the workshop, however, said that the HIES 2010 survey did not present the total scenario of the country.
Academics and population scientists at the programme said that the BBS should have conducted a more in-depth survey.
They also said that the survey did not include any statistics on slum people, no data by gender and no statistics on district and thana levels and this could be considered a flaw of the survey.
AKM Nurun Nabi, a teacher of population science in Dhaka University, said, 'Poverty is multi-dimensional. Poverty cannot be defined only by food and expenditure. It also includes health and other things.'
'We must also take note that per capita savings has decreased although the per capita income has increased. And poverty prevails as a result.' he added.
World Bank consultant Faizuddin Ahmed presented the key findings of the survey at the workshop.
BBS director general M Shahjahan Ali Mollah, acting head of the World Bank Bangladesh Sanjay Kathuria, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies director general MK Mujeri and Planning Commission member Shamsul Alam, among others, also spoke.
Source : New Age
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