Stakeholders of the five-year project under Rural Employment and Road
Maintenance Programme (RERMP) under Local Government Engineering
Department (LGED) urged extension of the tenure of the project which
came to an end on June 30.
Fifty-one thousand four hundred and seventy distressed women were
engaged in the project related to rural economic growth and poverty
reduction across the country, now have become jobless with completion
of the project, they told.
This was revealed at a programme of cheque and certificate
distribution ceremony of the project in Barisal Sadar upazila held at
upazila parishad auditorium in the city on Saturday.
The programme was presided over by Hafizur Rahman, executive engineer
of Sadar upazila LGED and was addressed, among others, by Shohidul
Alam, deputy commissioner, Azizul Huq Akkas, Sadar upazila chairman,
Rehana Begum, Sadar upazila vice chairman, Nurul Amin, chairman
Raipasha-Karapur union parishad and Nurjahan Begum, representative of
the stakeholders.
In Barisal, 856 women were employed in 85 unions of ten upazilas of
the district.
Each of them per day received wage of Tk 90 from which Tk 54 of the
amount paid to them for daily expenditure while rest Tk 36 was
deposited in their bank account.
After completion of the project, now they received cheque of Tk 22,000
to Tk 75,000 from their deposit deducting the loan, withdrawn from
savings amounts, informed in the eremony.
Nurjahan Begum of Karapur village of Sadar upazila, on behalf of the
stakeholders urging for project extension said that she had deposited
some money from her income from the project by doing tree plantation
and road maintenance works. By this time, she received training on
rearing of poultry and cattle, fish cultivation and agriculture
production. Now she is thinking of doing some business.
However LGED official hoped that women stakeholders of the programme
could lead a better life by engaging themselves in some income
generating works with the savings deposited by each of them during the
project period.
Mentionable LGED launched the five-year project under RERMP in 64
districts on July 1, 2008 for employment of the distressed
poverty-ridden women in the project to attain self-sufficiency.
Under the project, 10 women in each union and 30 in each monga
(famine-like situation) affected unions worked for five years.
In total, 51,470 women employed under the project from 4,498 unions of
all upazilas of the country and did maintenance work of 98,000
kilometres roads and planted 22, 50,000 trees. -Our Correspondent
