More than one crore beneficiaries are receiving allowances digitally.
Mobile banking has eliminated the hassle of getting allowances at home which has saved their time too.
Social Welfare Minister Nuruzzaman Ahmed said this while addressing as the chief guest at the distribution of motorcycles to social service officers under the Cash Transfer Modernization (CTM) project at the Department of Social Services at Agargaon in the capital on Wednesday.
He said, “There were complaints of various irregularities and lengthy procedures in the distribution of allowances in the traditional system. Through the digitalization of allowance disbursement, such complications have been eliminated. A database of over one crore beneficiaries has been created through the Cash Transfer Modernization Project.
The rates and number of beneficiaries of various types of allowances including old age allowance, widow allowance, and disability allowance have been increased.”
The State Minister for Social Welfare said that the government has expanded the social security net programmes. The State Minister gave instructions to the social service officers to implement these programmes properly.
Director General of the Department of Social Services, Dr. Abu Saleh Mustafa Kamal presided over the programme while Secretary of the Ministry of Social Welfare Md. Jahangir Alam was present among others.
When the procedure of digitalization started in April last year, from then till December of that year, more than 11,000 complaints were submitted at the department. These complaints include non-receipt of allowance, wrong entry of mobile number, transfer of money to other account, victim of fraud etc.
Most of these complaints came from old-age allowance, widow and widower allowance, disability allowance and disabled education stipend beneficiaries.
However, the officials of the department are continuously putting their efforts to solve those problems and soon these will be solved, they express their optimism.
According to the information of the Social Services Department, now 492 upazilas, 80 cities with social development (UCD) activities are being given allowances to 11 types of beneficiaries from a total of 572 units. The number of beneficiaries is 1 crore 7 lakh 81 thousand 76 people.
