Govt to reshuffle beneficiary lists of social safety programmes: State minister

State Minister for Social Welfare Farzana Sharmin today (15 March) told parliament that the government has started a process to reshuffle the beneficiary lists of various social safety-net programmes to remove ineligible persons and ensure support reaches the genuine recipients.

“We’re trying to identify the genuine beneficiaries in the lists. We’ll try to provide different allowances (under the social safety net) to the eligible people. We must correct the lists, reshuffling them and rechecking beneficiaries at the end level…. We’ve already started working accordingly,” she said.

The state minister made the remarks while replying to a supplementary question from opposition lawmaker Shahjahan Chowdhury (Chattogram-15) during the question-and-answer session.

The Jamaat-e-Islami lawmaker wanted to know whether the government would take steps to address irregularities and corruption in the social safety programmes.

Responding to the question, the state minister said former prime minister Khaleda Zia had introduced these social safety programmes, but different types of nepotism occurred later in the preparation of the beneficiary lists.

She said the government has taken a decision to form upazila-level committees to review and verify the beneficiary lists under different social safety programmes.

“We’ve taken a decision to form committees in different upazilas so that the lists can be rechecked properly and the deserving people can receive the cards and benefits. Our goal is to improve people’s living standards. We must remain sincere so that the right people receive the allowances,” said Farzana Sharmin.

Replying to a starred question from Zainul Abdin Farroque, she said the existing beneficiary lists are currently being re-examined to identify who are genuinely eligible to receive the benefits under the programmes.