LECTURE-21

Development aspects of
Bangladesh:Development Process, Income Distribution and Poverty
Development of Infra-structure: Power & Energy, Transport and Communication Sector in Bangladesh

Masuma Akter Shimu

 Poverty and Income Distribution
• Fundamentally poverty is a denial of choices and opportunities, a
violation of human dignity.
• It means lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society.
• It means not having enough to feed and clothe a family, not having
a school or clinic to go to; not having the land on which to grow
one’s food or a job to earn one’s living, not having access to credit.
• It means insecurity, powerlessness and exclusion of individuals,
households and communities.
• It means susceptibility to violence, and it often implies living in
marginal or fragile environments, without access to clean water or
sanitation.
 Measuring Poverty
• Absolute poverty or destitutions refers to the
deprivation of basic human needs, which commonly
includes food, water, sanitation, clothing, shelter,
health care and education.
• Relative poverty is defined contextually as economic
inequality in the location or society in which people
live. Usually, relative poverty is measured as the
percentage of population with income less than
some fixed proportion of median income.
 Poverty Line
• The Poverty line is usually determined in
relation to the estimates of standard calories
required for living a decent and meaningful life
by an individual taking into account the build,
the body structure and the age distribution of
the population, the ecological and climatic
conditions of the country.
• For Bangladesh FAO estimated that food energy
intake of an individual should equal caloric
value of 2150 per day.
 Traits of Poverty in Bangladesh
• The pressure of population is very heavy.
• The rate of over-all illiteracy is very high.
• The dependence on the agriculture sector for
both national wealth and employment is very
great.
• Special feature is the level of deprivation of the
womenfolk.
• Urbanization is at a low level in Bangladesh.
• Slow rate of over-all output growth in the country.
 Poverty Alleviation Strategies
• Poverty alleviation is both a social and economic
imperative in Bangladesh. Political stability and
social peace demand poverty eradication.
• Economic growth with human development is
absolutely essential for poverty alleviation.
• To ensure poverty reduction and sustainable
development, it is necessary to enhance per capita
income along with employment generation and to
adopt programmes that augment savings.
 Cont….
• A number of programmes both at government and
non-government levels are under implementation for
the employment and income generation and the
upliftment of the poor.
Special Safety-Net Programmes,
Old-age allowance for the elderly poor people,
Allowance for the widowed and the distressed
women,
Special micro-credit programme for the acid-burnt and
the physically impaired,
Training and self-employment programme for the
insolvent freedom fighters and their dependents,
 Cont…..
Poverty reduction and goat development programmes,
Housing fund for providing loans and grants to the
homeless poor,
Karmasangsthan Bank for providing employment
opportunities to the unemployed youth,
Abasan (poverty reduction and housing) Prokalpa,
Fund for mitigation of risk arising from natural disaster,
Implementation of sectoral policies,
Urgent attention in population planning,
Spread of education, Agricultural development,
 Cont…..
Balance between rural and urban investment,
Wages should be determined through discussion
between employers and labourers,
Legal provisions should be made for affirmative
action for the poor and especially women,
Representation of women in political and social
for a must also be ensured to empower them as
they are the most discriminated and deprived
class in the society,
Public intervention in terms of Social security.
 Social Safety Nets
• In Bangladesh, SSN was introduced after becoming
independent.
• The term SSN is typically applied to a set of social
programs that are primarily or totally focused on
less -advantaged and more vulnerable people.
• The safety net programs are designed to serve
people with little money, in-educate education, poor
health, or physical or mental disabilities or those
living in situations where they risk about or neglect.
• SSNs have been associated with poverty alleviation
and prevention.
The programs include in SSNs in Bangladesh as follow

• Cash transfer: Old age allowance, allowance for

disable person, allowance to the Widowed
,Deserted destitute women, Honorarium
program for the insolvent freedom fighters,
primary education stipend project, Female
secondary school assistant program and so on.
• In kind transfer: vulnerable group feeding
fighter, vulnerable group development,
Gratuitous Relief, food for works, Community
nutrition program and so on.
 Cont….
• Price subsidy: Fertilizer and Electricity subsidy,
Subsidy for marginal Farmers to cope with the
fuel price hike, Food subsidy.
• Jobs on labour intensive public works: Rural
employment opportunities for public assets,
100 employment generations program and so
on.
 Development of Infrastructure: Power & Energy,
Transport and Communication Sector in Bangladesh

• Power and Energy are critical to the socio-

economic development of the country as well
as to the enhancement of living standard.
• Energy is the driving force all economic
activities and most importantly the economy
can be seen as a system of energy flows, as a
sequence of energy conversion that culminate
in the production of goods and services.
 Cont…
• Natural Gas
The major source of our primary Energy is
natural gas. Almost three-fourths of the total
commercial energy demand is made from
natural gas. It is, therefore, considered as one of
the driving forces of the economy. As many as
23 gas fields have been discovered since 1955
when the first gas field was found in Sylhet.
 Cont…
• Consumption and Demand of Natural Gas
The supply of gas has been scaled up in the
generation of electricity. In 2009, 55 percent of total
extracted gas used to be consumed for electricity
generation, now that has increased to 56 percent.
The volume of gas that was supplied to the power
sector in 2009 has been increased by 10 percent in
2010. At the same time , the use of gas has increased
by 1 percent in each of the industry, CNG and
household sector separately , even though it has
declined by 3 percent in the fertilize industry.
 Cont…
• Coal: Trend to progress
Our coal resource has unlimited potential for the
diversification of energy sources in the country.
The proper utilization of extracted coal can be
ensured by establishing coal-based power plants
as well as using coal as a source of energy in the
manufacturing industries. It should be noted here
that the coal available in Bangladesh is considered
to be of high level heat generation capacity.
 Cont….
• Petroleum
Bangladesh has low level of domestic reserve of
petroleum along with insignificant production
capacity. Relatively, high level of consumption
has made it a net oil importer country. In 2011,
BPC has to import around 4.8 million tons of
petroleum oil which was 3.75 million tons in the
previous year.
 Cont…..
Determining appropriate policies and strategies and
providing financial support to generate wind –mill
power.
• Providing incentives for setting up of Bio-digester
plant
• Providing incentives for establishing solar panel
producing industry
• Determining rational price for ensuring
sustainable development of energy sector
• Developing and sustaining skilled professionals
with knowledge on various source of energy
 Transport and Communication

• Road transport
 In Bangladesh, among the various modes of transport,
road transport system in recent years has been playing
a significant role in transporting passengers and goods.
The Roads and Highways Department (RHD) manages
several categories of roads.
 RHD has under its control a total number 4,507 bridges
and 13,751 culverts. RHD is currently operating about
153 ferry boats in 60 ferry ghats on its road network
throughout the country. The road network under roads
and highways division combining different types of
road built over a period from 2003 to 2011.
 Cont …..
• Rail transport
 Bangladesh Railway is one of the oldest service-
oriented organisations which provides,
environment- friendly, less hazardous and less
expensive transport service.
 The most important issues at present with
regards to Bangladesh Railways are the high level
of direct and indirect subsidies provided by the
Government. Bangladesh Railways revenue
currently covers less than 70 percent of its
operating costs.
 Cont…
• Air Transport
 In addition to Biman – the Bangladesh Airlines, Which
is entirely in the public sector, a number of private
airlines have been established during last years in
Bangladesh. All airport of the country are, however, in
the public sector, only a minor element of the ground
facility is in the private sector.
 To meet growing demand government has plan to
construct new air points in important places, apart
from reintroducing Comilla, Lalmonirhat, Thakurgaon,
Tejgaon , Shamshernagar and Ishwardi airports after
necessary repair.
 Cont….
• Like many other public enterprises Bangladesh
Biman has been incurring loss year for years.
The quality of services of Biman is not the
international standard, besides its services
cost more than of the international airlines.
These are main causes for the loss of Biman
because it cannot complete with international
airlines and market it services.
 Cont….
• Water transport : (2)
1. Inland water transport
 Inland water transport is one of the oldest modes for
economically efficient and environmentally sustainable
transport system of the country.
 Inland waterways are a component of the Bangladesh
transport system in view of the floods, which regularly
affect the country and disrupt the other two surface
transport modes.
 Its inland water transport (IWT) continues to be an
important mode of transport not only in the inland
movement of freight and passengers.
 Cont….
 The high degree of penetration of the IWT network
providing access to about 25% of the rural household in
Bangladesh.
 IWT is such a mode of transport that has been
characterized as the leas-cost, environment friendly, less
accident –prone and low maintenance cost.
 In addition, there exists a dynamic private sector which
leads most of the sector activities such as cargo transport,
port management and ship building etc.
 That help the sector‘s contribution to shared growth and
poverty reduction.
 Cont…
2. Outland water transport
 In order of importance, Bangladesh’s three major port
are Chittagong, Mongla and the Dhaka-Narayanganj
complex.
 Chittagong port , the largest sea port of Bangladesh,
handles about 92 percent of country ‘s maritime trade.
 The growth rate of the volume of imports and exports
through Chittagong port is about 10-14 percent.
Mongla is the second seaport of Bangladesh.
 Because of its geographical location, Mongla port is
widely known as natural calamity protected eco-
friendly port.
 Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited(BTCL)

• The BTCL has taken up a series of activities in promoting the ICT

sector in the overall development of the country.
• It generates a sizable amount of revenue for the national
exchequer; helps ensure rapid flow of information for other
sectors of economy.
• Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL), the
only public sector telecom service provider, is doing its best to
provide advanced telecommunication service to its valuable
subscribers.
• BTCL intends to extend latest telecom facilities to increase
revenue earning and to boost up economic growth by setting-up
nationwide and international high speed communication.
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory
Commission (BTRC)
• In order to ensure development of
telecommunication service in Bangladesh and to
regulate them, Telecommunication Regulatory
Commission was formed as an independent
statutory body under the Telecommunication Act
2001.
• All relevant powers, responsibilities and pertinent
matters to telecommunications regulation have
been vested with the commission.
 Bangladesh Postal Department (BPD)

• The postal department is an attached

department of the Ministry of Post and
Telecommunication.
• This department provides postal services
through 9,884 post offices. The principal aim
of the postal department is to ensure least
costly, regular and quick transmission of postal
service to the people.