Dhaka, Feb 5 (bdnews24.com) – Vagrancy and begging will forever be rooted out from Bangladesh within the next five years, finance minister AMA Muhith hoped on Thursday.
The minister made the announcement as he awarded grants to 50 non-governmental organisations at a ceremony held at Cirdap auditorium, organised by NGO Foundation in the morning.
"We have to eradicate the vice of begging from the country within the next five years. We hope we can do that during the tenure of this government," Muhith said to the assembly as the chief guest.
"Years back, the size of our beggar population was 6-7 lakh, which in all probabilities has by now increased. But I don't think it's impossible to root out this vice, if we have our mind set on it."
Cities and towns, the minister said, have more beggars compared with the village and an integrated model has to be developed for the rehabilitation of both town and village beggars.
"Since we don't have any beggar rehabilitation model at hand, a comprehensive rehabilitation design for educating, training and employing vagrants from both villages and towns will be formulated and applied immediately through a government-NGO-private partnership," Muhith said.
He called upon the NGOs to attach priority to three issues—beggary eradication, establishing libraries and rehabilitating slum dwellers.
On problem-plagued slums, the minister said, "The capital city houses the highest number of slums sprouting on government lands, where the marginalised shelter helplessly, falling prey to the lures of the land-grabbers and extortioners."
"The Indian city of Patna has set a laudable example of rehabilitating slum dwellers, which may serve as a model for our professionals looking for workable models for the same purpose."
At the event, a total Tk 73.5 lakh was disbursed through bank cheques in favour of 50 NGOs.
NGO Foundation chairman and former caretaker government adviser M Hafizuddin Khan and foundation executive director Shahriar Parvez also spoke.
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