DHAKA — Prime Minister Tarique Rahman told Parliament on Wednesday that the government’s Family Card scheme will not place pressure on the national budget and will not conflict with other welfare services.
Calling the Family Card a state investment, the prime minister said it would not drive up inflation but would instead help reduce it. The scheme would foster local industry and create jobs, he said.
Tarique Rahman made the remarks during the question-and-answer session of the parliamentary session Wednesday morning, in response to a supplementary question from Hasnat Abdullah, the member of parliament for Cumilla-4.
Abdullah had asked how much the economy would benefit from the Family Card scheme and whether it would fuel inflation. He noted that bringing four crore families under the Family Card would cost 1.2 trillion taka (about $10.9 billion), with total annual expenditure of 1.34 trillion taka (about $12.2 billion). A farmer card scheme would cost an additional 70 billion taka (about $640 million).
The prime minister opened his response with a light remark to Abdullah, saying: “You are a witness yourself. In your constituency, women surrounded you asking for Family Cards. You responded that you would try to give them Family Cards.” Abdullah laughed at the comment.
The prime minister then said: “The government will provide Family Cards to four crore families in phases. It is not possible for any government in the world to do this all at once. Data must be collected for every family. In the first stage we will give the cards to marginal families. So we will prepare the budget and gradually increase the number of cards issued. That is why, based on the calculations we have done, there is no reason for budget pressure.”
He said the Family Card provides more money than other social safety net programs currently in place. “We have studied this and found that the same person is receiving several benefits. We will cut those down — not all of them, but those where there is repetition. We will move forward gradually like this,” he said.
The prime minister said the scheme would not generate inflation. The government would not print money, he said; instead, the program would help reduce inflation. Recipients have said they will use the funds for clothes or for children’s books, he said. Those receiving the cards do not use branded goods, only essentials, and the items they use are produced domestically. As a result, the money from Family Cards will flow into the rural economy and support local industrialization, he said.
“The Family Card is a state investment,” Tarique Rahman said. “Through it, local industry will gradually develop and jobs will be created. So our calculations show that inflation will not increase — it will fall.”
The parliamentary session had begun at 11 a.m. under the chairmanship of Speaker Hafiz Uddin Ahmed.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report