Rangpur still remains the poorest division, Mymensingh follows: BBS

The Rangpur division still sees the highest concentration of poor people, which means that infrastructural development has barely made a dent in the poverty rate in the region due to poor industrialisation.

With over 44% of households in the poorest quintile, the historically poverty-prone northern region stands the lowest in wealth among all of the eight divisions, followed by Mymensingh having 39.57% households in the poorest quintile in terms of wealth and socio-economic indicators ,  reveals a Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) survey.

Rangpur division had the highest over 47% poor population in the 2016 Household Income and Expenditure Survey, followed by Mymensingh with nearly 33%.   

The official statistical agency released the "Bangladesh Sample Vital Statistics 2021" report on 17 April which found the highest 20.97% households in the richest quintile in the Dhaka division.

At the national level, a total of 24.18% of households are in the poorest quintile, revealed the report while the number of households in the richest quintile is 13.62%.

Experts and economists said that regions historically known as poor still remain poorer. BBS officials urged government initiative to increase the income of people in lagged-behind areas by creating employment through industrialisation.

Dr Fahmida Khatun, executive director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) told TBS that public initiatives in the name of economic inclusion and infrastructure development in the last decade failed to reduce poverty in the historically poverty-prone areas.

"Transportation infrastructure could help to increase trade and mobility of the people. But production of tradable items should be boosted to increase income and reduce poverty," she said adding, "There is no alternative to creating an environment for industrialisation to reduce poverty.

The economist also said that the average data seems a significant achievement in poverty reduction for the last decade, but the disaggregated data represents how inequality is increasing in several areas.

She said that the incidence of poverty in the Mymensingh region could not have been identified while it was included in the Dhaka division. Becoming a separate division, it appears that Mymensingh has become the second most poverty-stricken region in the country.

Alamgir Hossain, the director of the Sample Vital Registration System project, said that the wealth quintiles are useful to understand relative wealth and equity within a country, they do not give one a sense of absolute wealth.

He said that the BBS introduced the indicator to find how the households in several areas are distributed in the ranking of wealth.

The BBS introduced the Wealth Quintile Index for the first time with its Sample Vital Statistics in the 2021 report, which is considered as one of the key parameters to see the socioeconomic condition of the households, said BBS officials.

They said that quintiles are derived from a series of questions about household construction materials, water and sanitation access, and ownership of various items like television, and refrigerator, to form a wealth index score.

This score is used to rank households by wealth, and the population is then subdivided into five quintiles to produce a relative indicator of socioeconomic status within the country at the time of the survey.

The report found the highest 20.97% households of Dhaka division in the richest quintile, and only 12.30% of households in the poorest quintile, least in all divisions.

The report provided the national level wealth quintile index with a breakdown of rural areas, city corporations, pourashava and division level.

Only 7.17% of the rural household are in the richest quintile, while 29.29% of rural households are in the poorest quintile.

The report also found only 3% of households of city corporations in the poorest quintile and 47.86% of households in the richest portion. The number of richest households in the city areas is the highest and the rate of poorest in these areas are lowest.

The survey was conducted with data collected from more than three lakh households in over 2000 sample survey areas across the country, he noted and added that data collection ended in December 2021.