Significant improvement in poverty alleviation in greater Rangpur

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RANGPUR, June 8 (BSS): Poverty alleviation has improved significantly following involvement of people of the poorer section with different income-generating activities in recent times all over greater Rangpur including the remote erosion-prone char areas, concerned officials said today.
This was possible because of the tremendous successes achieved following successful implementation of programmes by different organisations and donor agencies for creating jobs and income-generating opportunities to alleviate poverty and solve the job problem during the past ten years, they said.
Cultivation of high valued cash crops like maize, vegetables, fruits and spices, pisciculture, rearing of poultry birds, cows and goats, productions in cottage and small industries and enterprises, microcredit activities, VGD and other programmes including afforestation on vast barren char lands brought the successes.
Various government departments, dozens of NGOs, donor agencies like World Food Programme (WFP), USAID, CARE-Bangladesh, Grameen Bank, BRAC, RDRS, ASA and other organisations are assisting in implementing the programmes.
The situation is expected to improve further within the next couple of years as these programmes are running successfully to eradicate poverty once and for all from the disaster and poverty- prone areas.
Hundreds of people of the river erosion and flood-prone areas of 28 upazilas in Rangpur, Nilphamari, Lal-monirhat, Gaibandha and Kurigram districts have now changed their fate and many of them have achieved self-reliance as a result of these programmes.
The sources said these programmes have been proved to be effective for eradicating poverty of thousands of poor and distressed families of the areas where many of them are also enjoying the solar power facilities that has further improved their standard of life.
Sources in the reputed NGOs and government officials and experts said the intensity of the century-old seasonal job crisis that repeats every year creating untold sufferings to the jobless farm workers during the lean season of September, October, November were almost not noticeable in recent years.
Almost all children are now attending schools even in the remote char areas where people were living under abject poverty even some years ago, the sources added.