The Crime Desk: The government has taken an initiative to make the universal pension system more comprehensive. As a part of this, the government has undertaken a project titled ‘Strengthening the universal pension system’ to ensure their old age protection by bringing the elderly population of the country under a sustainable and well-organized social security structure.
The cost of this project is estimated at 325 million US dollars, equivalent to 3 thousand 802 crores or 50 lakhs in Bangladeshi currency. Of this, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) will provide project assistance of US$ 250 million, and the remaining US$ 75 million will be provided from the government treasury, sources in the finance department said.
According to sources, the preliminary development project proposal (PDPP) of the project has been sent to the Ministry of Planning for approval. After getting the approval of the Prime Minister, the work on the project will start. Recently, through a letter from ERD, the cooperation of ADB has been informed.
The government has passed the ‘Universal Pension Management Act, 2023’ to introduce a national universal pension system to protect the people of the country under a sustainable and well-structured social security framework for their old-age livelihood. Following the establishment of the National Pension Authority (NPA) under the Act on April 2, 2023, the Prime Minister inaugurated the universal pension scheme on August 17, the same year. Initially, four schemes of universal pension, namely ‘Progress’, ‘Samata’, ‘Prabas’, ‘Suraksha’ scheme, and later ‘Pratya’ scheme, were introduced. Since then, the universal pension program has been claimed to have received a significant response among the common people.
According to sources, the importance of the public pension system is immense to ensure the development of public financial management and social security. In order to make the public pension system sustainable and effective, it is essential to carry out the relevant key activities. For this purpose, it is necessary to undertake a development project. Through the implementation of this project, it will be possible to determine the institutional outline of the National Pension Authority, establish infrastructure, develop human resources, perform financial analysis, and perform other activities. Meanwhile, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has informally informed the finance department to provide assistance for the implementation of the project.
According to sources, a meeting has been held with the ADB and the Department of Economic Relations regarding the formulation of the PDPP with the aim of embarking on a project titled ‘Stranding Universal Pension System’ to increase the scope of the universal pension system. According to the ‘Annex-D’ of the circular issued on June 12, 2022, by the Ministry of Planning, the preliminary development project proposal has been formulated.
According to sources, the objective of the project is to implement a national universal pension scheme to ensure old-age protection for the elderly population of the country by bringing them under a sustainable and well-organized social security framework. The project will start in November 2024 and end in June 2028.
