Family Card drive targets 4.5cr households by Dec

The government has launched a nationwide drive to collect data on around 4.45 crore households by December for its Family Card programme, which aims to provide financial assistance to eligible female heads of households.
Social Welfare Minister Professor Dr AZM Zahid Hossain announced the target at a press conference at the conference room of the Press Information Department (PID) at Bangladesh Secretariat on Monday.
State Minister for Social Welfare Farzana Sharmin Putul, secretary of the ministry Dr Mohammad Abu Yusuf, director general of Department of Social Services Shah Mohammad Mahbub, chief information officer of PID Syed Abdal Ahmed was also present at the press conference. 
Dr Zahid Hossain said that 66,815 enumerators and 6,681 supervisors had been deployed for the exercise. The programme, designed to promote women’s economic independence and social security, will use a centralised database and a Proxy Means Test (PMT) to identify eligible beneficiaries, he added. 
The government has completed the first phase of training for the personnel 
involved and undertaken necessary preparations, including mobile SIM card procurement, network-based cybersecurity measures, workforce management and the establishment of a Network Operations Centre (NOC).

The data collection will cover households across the country, with the target calculated on the basis of an average of five members per household. Once the database is completed, eligible beneficiaries will be selected using the PMT, said the minister.
Under the Family Card Implementation Policy 2026, the households have been classified into five socioeconomic quintiles based on an updated PMT methodology developed by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). The categories are poor, extremely poor, vulnerable lower-income, middle-income and affluent.
According to the minister, female heads of households would be eligible to receive a Family Card, but cash benefits would be provided to those belonging to the first three quintiles, which represent comparatively disadvantaged households. Women heading households with a PMT score of 860 or below would be considered eligible for the allowance.
The government has set a target of bringing four million new female heads of households under the Family Card and allowance programme in the current fiscal year. It plans to extend the benefits gradually to all eligible female heads of households over the next three fiscal years.