Inflationary pressure eased in September, supported by different steps taken by the government to curb it even though it surged in August, Planning Minister MA Mannan said on Monday.

“I’ve a good news for you that the crazy horse of inflation has been bridled. Although inflation rose in August, it fell in September,” he said without revealing any specific inflation data.

However, the minister said it was a procedural delay only and there was no intention of data engineering behind the delay. He assured that the detailed inflation data would be released within a couple of days.

The planning minister made the statements at a training of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) on a post-enumeration assessment of the Population Census of BBS. 

Bangladesh saw a big jump in inflation in June as it hit a nine-year high at 7.56 percent, which fell modestly to 7.48 percent in July. 

MA Mannan said September’s inflation has declined remarkably and expected a further fall for the month of October as well.

While explaining the reasons behind the fall in inflation, he said some 40 million people are getting benefits of the government’s subsidised sale of essential commodities. Besides, the government strategies also paid off. 

At the press conference, it was informed that BIDS will verify the preliminary data of the recent Population and Housing Census 2021 carried out by BBS. 

The Post-Enumeration Census (PEC) will be conducted by BIDS across the country from October 10 to 16. The PEC will be conducted through tablet computers following the Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) method. 

Later, the data will be matched with the BBS data to find out whether there was any discrepancy in its census.

Speaking on the occasion, State Minister for Planning Dr Shamsul Alam hailed the BBS for conducting a good census in spite of limitations. 

However, he thinks that the state statistics agency should be given freedom to carry out such surveys. 

“The statistics agency in Bangladesh doesn’t enjoy freedom like that in India. BBS should provide more updated data,” the state minister said.

Planning Secretary Mamun-al-Rashid, Statistics and Informatics Division (SID) Secretary Dr Shahnaj Arefin and BBS Director General Motiur Rahman, among others, were also present at the event chaired by BIDS Director General Dr Binayak Sen.