2nd household database survey begins

Second phase of national household database (NHD) began on Sunday to collect data from household in 25 districts of three divisions - Dhaka, Chittagong and Mymensingh.

The government has set a target of collecting data from 35 million households of the country for preparing NHD to identify economic status of the people aiming to eliminate poverty.

"We are using Proxy Mean Test-Formula (PMTF) to assess economic status of every household in Bangladesh," project director of NHD programme Md Shafiul Alam said while addressing the inaugural function of a training for zonal officers of the project at Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) in Dhaka city on Sunday.

The National Household Database Project under the BBS has organised the training programme in cooperation with Thengamara Mohila Sabuj Sangha (TMSS).

Secretary of Statistics and Informatics Division AKM Mozammel Haque, among others, addressed the function with BBS director general Md Amir Hossain in the chair.

Director of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) of TMSS Nigar Sultana and representatives of different government and non-government organisations were present, among others.

Mozammel said, "NHD, an online database, will be prepared based on economic status of every household to bring the target group under the social safety-net programme which will remove all sorts of irregularities."

The NHD project officially was launched in 2013 and it will be completed by December, 2018, the project sources said. Under the project, data will be collected from 3.5 crore household across the country in three phases, they added.

BBS DG Amir said, "As the country has no household database, we cannot assess economic condition at family level, which is hampering the poverty reduction efforts of the government. I believe that the NHD will remove overlapping practices of social safety-net programmes."

Referring to the latest BBS data revealed in October, 2016, its officials said percentage of extreme poor in the country is 12.9 while overall rate of poor people is 18.5.

Nigar Sultana said after preparing of NHD, real beneficiaries will be included in the social safety-net programme.

"NHD will significantly help to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) through successful implementation of social safety-net programme," she added.

Under the first phase, data collection survey was conducted in 17 districts of the three divisions -- Rangpur, Barisal and Mymensingh -- from 4 to 23 April, Shafiul said.

The data will be collected from targeted households of Rajshahi and Sylhet divisions in the third phase, he added.