Stabilising fragile economy biggest budget challenge: Finance Minister

The biggest challenge of the proposed budget is to stabilise the fragile economy and then make it prosperous, Finance Minister Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury has said.

He made the remarks after a meeting of the cabinet committee on the Family Card programme at the Ministry of Finance conference room on Monday, June 15.

The finance minister said the Family Card programme has been undertaken to ensure that the financial crisis does not negatively impact the lives of low-income people and that they can gradually become self-sufficient. The government is considering this programme with utmost importance.

Meanwhile, Social Welfare Minister Abu Zafar Md Zahid Hossain said the concerned cabinet committee has finalised the draft of the Family Card Implementation Policy 2026. To ensure transparency, the programme's activities will be reviewed by a third party every six months.

No political individual will be involved in implementing this programme. District administrators and government officials will manage the implementation, the minister added .

The social welfare ministry has drawn up an ambitious plan to implement the Family Card programme, a major electoral pledge of the new government, involving an outlay of Tk 1,34,000 crore over four years . The programme aims to bring 2 crore families under the scheme within four years by surveying 4.1 crore households . The government has selected pilot areas using Proxy Means Test (PMT) scoring, a scientific poverty assessment method—to ensure the distribution remains free from political influence . Rural families owning 0.50 acres or less of homestead and cultivable land are considered eligible . The card is issued in the name of the mother or female head of household to ensure women’s empowerment.