Staff Reporter:
Prime Minister Tarique Rahman is inaugurating the government’s landmark “Family Card” program today aimed at strengthening women’s empowerment, ensuring their rights, dignity and economic inde-pendence.
The inauguration ceremony will be held at T&T playground in Banani (adjacent to Korail slum) at 10:00 am today.
The initiative is part of the government’s commitment to achieving national development and social jus-tice by empowering women and recognizing them as the heads of families in social protection programs.
Under the pilot phase, the program is being implemented in 15 wards of 13 city corporations/unions across 13 districts of the country, said Social Welfare Minister Abu Zafar Md Zahid Hossain, MP, at a press conference at the Multipurpose Hall of the Ministry of Finance yesterday convened on the eve of the launching of this epoch-making program.
Finance Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury, Adviser to the Prime Minister Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir, State Minister for Social Welfare Farzana Sharmin, State Minister for LGRD Mir Shahe Alam and secretaries concerned were present, among others.
The ward committees conducted door-to-door surveys collecting data on the socio-economic conditions of households, including family size, education, housing conditions, household assets (such as television, refrigerator, computer and mobile phone), and remittance flow.
The collected data were verified by union and upazila committees before finalizing the beneficiary list.
During the pilot phase, information of 67,854 women-headed households was collected across the coun-try, he added.
Zahid said using a software-based Proxy Means Test (PMT), households were classified into categories such as extreme poor, poor, lower-middle-income, middle-income and affluent groups.
Out of 51,805 households initially identified as extreme poor, poor and lower-middle-income, verifica-tion found 47,777 households with valid data. After removing cases involving multiple benefits, gov-ernment employment or pension entitlements, 37,567 women-headed households were finally selected for assistance.
Officials said the automated PMT-based system minimizes the possibility of corruption, nepotism or manual interference in selecting beneficiaries.
Under the program, each eligible household will receive a modern “Family Card” equipped with a con-tactless chip, QR code and NFC (Near Field Communication) technology, ensuring security, durability and ease of use.
Each card will cover up to five members of a household, while larger joint families may receive multi-ple cards proportionately.
During the pilot phase, selected beneficiaries will receive a monthly allowance of Tk 2,500, and the gov-ernment may later consider providing equivalent food assistance.
However, families will not be eligible if any member receives salary, allowance or pension from gov-ernment, autonomous or state-owned institutions. Households with commercial licences, large business-es, luxury assets such as cars or air conditioners, or savings certificates worth Tk 500,000 or more will also be excluded.
The allowance will be transferred directly to beneficiaries through the Government-to-Person (G2P) dig-ital payment system, credited to the women’s mobile wallets or bank accounts, enabling them to receive support without delay or intermediaries.
For the pilot program up to June 2026, the government has allocated Tk 38.07 crore, of which Tk 25.15 crore (66.06%) will be distributed as direct cash support and Tk 12.92 crore (33.94%) will be used for programme implementation, including data collection, development of the online system and card pro-duction.
The Family Card Pilot Implementation Guideline-2026 has already been prepared and uploaded on the website of the Ministry of Social Welfare.
The Social Welfare Minister said the government’s new “Family Card” program will be provided com-pletely free of cost and will not involve any financial transaction.
