Experts held income inequality and centralization of resources and power as the main reasons behind the regional disparity in poverty, as exposed in the recently-released poverty maps.
They also feared the trend will hamper the country's poverty alleviation and middle-income status achievement, and decrease pace of industrialization in the under-developed areas due to poor infrastructure and absence of utility services.
They suggested identifying the real problems in those areas, and undertaking more target-oriented programmes for achieving an inclusive growth.
The Poverty Maps of Bangladesh 2010 were jointly published by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), World Bank and United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).
The maps show that Dhaka division has the highest share of the country's poor population, followed by Chittagong, as people from impoverished areas migrate to these economic hubs in search of employment.
The reports mentioned that of a total of 49.4 million poor people, 15.9 million or 32.3 per cent live in Dhaka and 8.29 million in Chittagong. It means nearly half of the country's total poor population lives in these two regions.
Experts noted the issue of urban poverty is not reflected in the poverty maps, and it is yet to get adequate attention by both the government and economists. But urban poverty will be the major challenge for the country in near future, as the fastest growing urbanization is taking place in Dhaka.
"More than 32 per cent of the total poor live in Dhaka only, which means the population is huge here. What we will not get from the poverty maps is the urban poverty scenario. It is critical in the capital and will be a challenge in future," former caretaker government adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman told the FE.
"Although the country's overall poverty has dropped to 31.5 per cent, and is projected to decrease further, there is regional disparity," he added.
The Poverty Maps also show that northern division of Rangpur and southern division of Barisal have the highest poverty incidence at 42 per cent and 38.3 per cent respectively, whereas Chittagong and Sylhet have the lowest at 26.1 per cent and 25.1 per cent.
Mr Zillur said earlier the northern region was considered as a poor area because of 'monga', but the situation has changed there. The poverty in southern region indicates that still some problems are there.
Professor MA Taslim of Department of Economics, Dhaka University, said as there are less economic opportunities in other parts of the country, people flock to Dhaka. But all of them cannot manage job or work, and remain unemployed.
He said the economic opportunities start decreasing as distance from the capital increases.
In Bangladesh the rulers always try to centralize resources along with power. Politics is a major hurdle towards achieving development goals, he also said.
Mr Taslim suggested spreading the economic opportunities across the country to overcome the present disproportionate development.
"The biggest challenge is making infrastructure and utility services available all over the country, without which it will be hard for the entrepreneurs to set up industries. The government should pay attention to the issue," he opined.
Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) director general Mustafa K Mujeri said there is a relation between Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate and poverty. If growth rate increases, poverty reduces. But the higher the inequality, the lower the impact will be on poverty eradication, he added.
Mr Mujeri suggested undertaking more target-oriented and effective programmes for the society's poor section, which generally remains out of development process.
He also said small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and large industries are more beneficial for generating employment for the poor.
So the reasons for which infrastructure has not been developed and utility services are not available across the country should be identified and tackled accordingly, he added.
The government has set a target to achieve the middle-income status by 2021, for which per capita income should be raised to $1,026 to $4,035. According to the experts, the country needs an accelerated poverty reduction rate to bring the extreme poor out of poverty.
The government should target to take out minimum one million extreme poor families a year from poverty to eradicate poverty of 25 million people by 2021, who are living in around six million families.
If the government can take this initiative, Bangladesh will be able to eradicate extreme poverty before the World Bank deadline of 2030.
