One crore 30 lakh primary students in the country will be given stipends through mobile banking service 'Nagad'. The Department of Primary Education has taken this decision.
Alamgir Mohammad Mansurul Alam, director general of the primary education department, said the initiative was taken on the instructions of the prime minister. The stipend will be paid in Nagad from the government institution as soon as possible.
According to the Department of Primary Education, the government has taken this new initiative to reduce the suffering. There is a delay in sending money through other means. The money will go directly to the students' accounts through Nagad and they can withdraw it whenever they want. This will reduce the cost.
For several years, the stipend was paid through SureCash mobile financial services. However, for cashout charges and data management, ‘SureCash’ had to pay a total of Taka. Nagad will give the whole service to the government for only seven and a half rupees per thousand.
Under the new agreement, the arrears from April to December will also be distributed in Nagad.
Every year, one crore 30 lakh primary level students get stipends in this process. In all, the government spent about 4 thousand crore. In this regard, the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education sent a summary to the Prime Minister with two alternative proposals. It was proposed by the ministry to give the work in Nagad through open tender method or OTM system. The Prime Minister directed to give the job to the Nagad considering the government institution.
According to the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education, they have received numerous complaints in the last 3 years while distributing stipends through SureCash. These include allegations of not having enough agent points for cashouts or leaving extra money from students.
At present, primary and pre-primary level students will get a scholarship of Tk 75 per person and from first to fifth class up to Tk 150 per person. Earlier, students from pre-primary level got Tk 50 and students from first to fifth class got Tk 100.
