Welcome to Business Outlook
Related Articles
Around 47% people had to cut their cost of consumption due to the fall in income
Per capita daily income of the urban slum has dropped by 82%, while income of the rural poor declined by 79% during the shutdown, according to a survey.
Meanwhile, the daily income of vulnerable non-poor dropped to Tk55 from Tk161, a decline of 71% on the first week of April compared to that of February’s.
The survey, titled “Poverty Trends under Covid-19: Sharing Findings from PPRC-BIGD Rapid Response Survey,” was unveiled through an online media briefing recently.
It was jointly conducted by the Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) and BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD). A total of 5,471 respondents were reached through telephone from April 4 to April 12.
The survey says per capita daily income of the urban slum dropped by 82%, from Tk108 in February to Tk27 on the first week of April, while the income of the rural poor declined by 79%, from Tk89 to Tk33 in same time frame.
BIGD Executive Director Dr Imran Matin said that the people’s income were reduced by more than 70%. Around 47% people had to cut their cost of consumption due to the fall in income.
The poor slashed 40% of their expenditure for food while people vulnerable to poverty reduced it by 36%.
He also said, citing conversation with some families, many are using their savings while some borrowed money to run their families. Besides, at least 27% of the poor are not getting three meals a day.
Government support
The survey recommended that the government provide Tk5,600 crore immediately, Tk1,368 for per person in rural areas and Tk1,702 in urban areas, to ensure a month’s food security for the nearly 40 million poor population of the country.
Former adviser to caretaker government and PPRC Executive Chairman Hossain Zillur Rahman said a huge number of the poor people would face food crisis at the end of this month (April) and they need assistance.
“The traditional relief assistance of the government will not be enough to fight the present situation. This requires a different type of thinking,” he added.
He insisted on resuming the open market sale (OMS) scheme for low-income people to address the economic crisis following the coronavirus outbreak.
Of the respondents, the main source of income for 40.32% is casual labour, 29.23% is salaried labour, 17.84% run small businesses, 9.14% depend on agriculture and livestock rearing and the income source for the remaining 3.47% is other activities.
On March 26, the government first introduced a 10-day shutdown till April 4 to help prevent the spread of coronavirus in the country and encourage people to be at home and maintain social distancing, which was later extended in phases.
The government issued a circular extending the general holiday for all public and private offices to April 25 with weekly holidays.
As of Sunday, Bangladesh has reported 91 deaths and 2,456 cases of Covid-19.
The fast-spreading virus has claimed over 165,060 lives globally and infected more than 2,407,340 people, according to Worldometers.
As many as 625,128 people have also recovered from Covid-19, a disease caused by a new strain of coronavirus, which has spread to 210 countries and territories across the globe.
(DT)
