Hundreds of social safety net recipients in Keshabpur, Jashore, cannot draw their allowances because their fingerprints are not matching. Turned away at micro merchant points (digital payment and banking service centres), they and their families are now going from the bank to the union parishad to the upazila social services office.
According to the upazila social services office, Keshabpur has 15,979 old-age allowance recipients. Each receives Tk 700 a month, drawn as Tk 2,100 every three months. Another 8,655 people receive the widow allowance, 6,931 the disability allowance, 335 the allowance for underprivileged groups and three the allowance for hijras.
Akam Ali Sardar of Majidpur village, who is visually impaired, has received the disability allowance since 2017. His national ID gives his age as 70, though he is nearer 90. Because of the fingerprint problem he has not been able to draw the last four months' money this year. His son Jahangir Hossain Sardar took him to the agent point, then the union parishad and then the upazila office without a solution. Khodeja Bibi, 88, of the same village, said she used to buy her medicines with the allowance and now cannot.
Upazila social services officer Roknuzzaman said he was aware of the problem and had instructed the bank and the union parishads. Majidpur union parishad chairman Humayun Kabir Palash said recipients whose prints do not match are being advised to correct their accounts with the fingerprint of their nominee or a close relative.
Prosenjit Ghosh, Bank Asia's relationship officer for Keshabpur, said the problem is worst in families where one mobile number was used to open accounts for several recipients. Accounts are being fixed for recipients who come to the bank in person, each with a separate mobile number.
Abdul Karim and Arati Rani Das of Majidpur, Chhabirun Nesa and Sharifun Nesa of the municipality's Sabdia ward and hundreds of others across the upazila face the same problem. On the bank's advice, those whose accounts were opened on someone else's mobile number are getting them fixed by coming in person with a number of their own. The report was filed by Samakal's Keshabpur correspondent.
Photo: Mattes / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Source: samakal
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