Let the family card reach the marginalised
The Family Card program in Bangladesh is a major social protection initiative launched on Tuesday (March 10, 2026), aimed at providing direct financial assistance to marginalized, poor, and lower-middle-income households.
Initiated by the government of Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, this program seeks to consolidate fragmented safety nets into a unified, technology-driven system, prioritizing women’s empowerment by issuing cards in the name of the female head of the household.
Just three weeks after the formation of government following a landslide election victory in the 13 Parliamentary election, the Prime Minister formally declared the start of the initiative at a city’s playground in Banani (adjacent to Korail slum).
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), in its election manifesto declared before the national election, has promised this pilot scheme with a view to ensuring the economic security of the people, especially the poor women, is impressive and encouraging.
It’s intended to be a pragmatic and target-oriented social welfare approach to relieve financial hardship for the marginalised and low-income people.
We are impressed with the proposal to issue cards in the name of housewives, recognizing their central role in household management and ensuring that assistance reaches where it matters most is certainly a thoughtful and forward-thinking gesture.
Thus, direct financial support of Tk 2,000-2,500 per family would go a long way to provide immediate relief to millions.
However, the fiscal impact of such a universal program could be immense, with estimates suggesting that covering 4 crore families would cost upwards of Tk 9,600 crore annually.
This country is accustomed to seeing promises without implementation, so to see a government so eager to get to work is certainly a positive.
As a nation whose budget is already stretched thin, expanding such a program, as envisioned, would require significant planning and robust financing to avoid destabilising the economy.
Historically, Bangladesh’s social safety nets have often faltered because benefits failed to reach the most marginalized — persons with disabilities, widows, workers, and those in the remotest areas.
Therefore, there should be no scope for political affiliation or patronage to influence distribution.
The same old patterns, where the social safety net becomes another instrument of exclusion rather than empowerment, must be avoided at all costs. Transparency, objective criteria, and independent oversight are therefore non-negotiable.
Ultimately, the success of the government’s ambitious family card program will depend entirely on its execution.
If it inherits the systematic flaws of past social safety net schemes – such as unverified data, poor targeting, and weak monitoring – it risks becoming just another inefficient program. We want the program to be a grand success.
