Dhaka — The Coronavirus could not stand in the way of the implementation of social security activities of the Department of Social Services. The Department has worked to provide allowances to about 90 lakh elderly, widows, and disabled people through social security programs through cash and the development of mobile financial service providers through the GTP system.
In a meeting on February 25 last year to mark the Mujib Year, Sheikh Rafiqul Islam, Director General of the Department of Social Services, decided to provide allowances in the GTP system to alleviate the sufferings and sufferings of the beneficiaries of the social security program.
Since then, the Department of Social Services has started working to deliver the allowance money on mobile phones.
On December 31 last year, the Ministry of Social Welfare signed an agreement with Cash and Development.
Then the work of opening mobile accounts of the beneficiaries started. The action plan is taken to reduce the suffering of the beneficiaries in opening the account.
According to him, officials and employees and Nagad and bKash representatives reached out to the beneficiaries to open mobile accounts.
Officials at the Department of Social Services said: “the task has not been easy for them. We had to face various adversities and challenges at the beginning of the work. In the Department of Social Services, 50 per cent of the posts are vacant. However, even with less manpower, no obstacle could stop their work.”
Until now, allowances were paid through banks under the social security program.
As a result, the beneficiaries had to go to the bank and wait for a long time to collect the allowance. This would have caused extreme suffering to the beneficiaries.
On January 14, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the Direct Remittance of Virtual Social Security Program allowance through cash and development at the Bangabandhu International Conference Center.
According to the Department of Social Services, 8.5 million people will be given allowances under social security activities in the current fiscal year 2020-21. Beneficiaries include 49 lakh elderly, 20 lakh 50 thousand widows and husbands abused, and 18 lakh, disabled people. Disability education stipend will be given to one lakh students with disabilities.
In addition, the living standards of 52,000 people of the third gender, including the Vedas and the backward, will be improved through allowances, training, and stipends.
In the second wave of the corona, the payment of allowances through mobile financial services is under threat.
As a result of the lockdown and movement restrictions announced by the government, the officers and employees of the Department of Social Services have to get a lot of speed to work.
In this situation, on April 27, the Cabinet Division declared the distribution of services and allowances of the Ministry of Social Welfare as an emergency service and issued an order to continue the activities following the hygiene rules.
Regarding the overall progress of the distribution of allowances under the social security program, Sheikh Rafiqul Islam, Director General of the Department of Social Services, said: “The Department of Social Services has been paying the allowances through bank accounts for so long. At present, money is being paid through agent banking and mobile financial services.”
12 lakhs through agent banking and 35 lakhs in MFS have already been disbursed. The officials and employees of the department are working tirelessly day and night in the midst of the Corona disaster without any incentive to reach the hands of all the beneficiaries by June 30, he added.
