Prime Minister Tarique Rahman ordered officials to prepare an accurate and transparent national list of farmers by December after verification, Deputy Press Secretary Hasan Shiplu said.
Rahman issued the directive Tuesday at a meeting on farmer cards at the Prime Minister’s Office under the Cabinet Division in the Bangladesh Secretariat.
The prime minister said each card should carry the farmer’s photograph and a QR code and store information about identity, agricultural production, government assistance and agricultural markets.
Officials told the meeting that work to open bank accounts for farmers had begun. Cards will be distributed in stages after the necessary preparations are completed.
The program is intended to help subsidies, low-cost loans, incentives and other government benefits reach genuine farmers quickly and easily. The government says 43 lakh farmers, or 4.3 million, will receive benefits during the current fiscal year and plans to cover about 2 crore farmers, or 20 million, within three years.
Attendees included Agriculture, Fisheries and Livestock Minister Amin ur Rashid; Fisheries and Livestock State Minister Sultan Salahuddin Tuku; Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives State Minister Mir Shahe Alam; Prime Minister’s Adviser Mahdi Amin; Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister ABM Abdus Sattar; Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Shakirul Islam Khan; BNP Special Secretary Belayet Hossain; Bangladesh Milk Producers’ Cooperative Union Limited President S. M. Amir Hamza Shatil; and senior officials from the relevant ministries and divisions.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report