In the wake of gradual rising
of slum, poor and extreme poor people, more schemes needed to
eradicate urban poverty in the city alongside eliminating other
poverty linked social crimes especially addiction of drugs and
its trafficking, speakers at a meeting said.
They also viewed the activities of Urban Partnership for
Poverty Reduction Project (UPPRP) should be more meaningful and
effective so that its beneficiaries particularly women can derive
its total benefits.
Local Government Engineering Department has been
implementing the project in the metropolis in association with
UNDP and financial and technical supports from UKaid and
UNHabitat.
Rajshahi City Corporation (RCC) organised the meeting at its
conference hall here yesterday afternoon for evaluating progress
of different components of the project and identification of its
existing problems besides mitigating those.
According to the officials concerned, main thrust of the
project is to improve the living and livelihood condition of
around two and half lakh poor and extreme poor people, especially
women and girls, in the city by 2015.
Shariful Islam Babu, Mayor-in-Charge of RCC, who chaired the
meeting, urged all concerned to ensure transparency and
accountability in all of the project implementation activities
through removing the existing problems as early as possible.
He says there should be measures of strong monitoring and
supervision of the grants provided among the beneficiaries under
the two major components- SEF and SIF- to unearth the facts that
whether the disbursed grants are utilized properly or not.
Under the project, the beneficiary communities identify and
priorities the environmental, social and economic challenges they
face as well as the required actions to address them, said UPPRP
Town Manager Ershadul Haque.
More than 20,000 women from slum and underprivileged areas
across the city have come together in an anti-poverty savings
scheme to raise more than Taka five crore.
Through the savings and credit programmes, the communities
now can operate their own savings schemes and create a revolving
fund from which credit operations are being managed by
themselves.
He told the meeting that process of disbursing around Taka
3.55 crore among 5,750 underprivileged women as grant is being
progressed for improving their micro business for their selfreliance.
Under socio-economic fund, he said Taka 1.46 crore were
disbursed among 3,088 dropout school children for restarting their
institutional education earlier and disbursing process of Taka
1.36 crore among 4,000 children is being progressed at present.
The programme promotes household and community level urban
food production technology demonstrations, provides small input
supports especially high yielding variety vegetable and fruits
seeds, saplings, ducklings, chick and poultry vaccination.
It also provides business start-up grants to extreme poor
women for poultry, goat rearing, beef fattening and agri-business
allowing them to have access to regular income.
Besides, the ongoing apprenticeships and vocational training
improve the odds of youth landing decent jobs and regular income.
Various other settlement improvement facilities like 8,484
pit latrines, one community latrine, 1,403 tubewells, 42,412
squire-kilometer footpath, 6,708 meter drain, 34 dustbins and
seven community centers were developed for ensuring improved
water and sanitation among the poverty-prone communities.
The access to improved water sources makes the lives of
community members healthier while the constructed toilets and
bathing facilities leads to improved hygiene practices and the
footpaths improves settlement accessibility and mobility.
Among others, RCC Councilors Ansar Ali, Shahidul Islam Pintu
and Masuda Mallik, Chief Executive Officer Ajahar Ali, Secretary
AKM Masuduzzaman and Chief Revenue Officer Syeda Zebin Nissa
Sultana also spoke on the occasion. – BSS Rajshahi
