Govt to assign Nagad for primary student stipend distribution

The government is going to assign Nagad, mobile financial service (MFS) of the Bangladesh Post Office, to distribute stipend among the students of primary schools.

The Ministry of Primary and Mass Education has started the process to sign a deal with Nagad in this regard following an instruction of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

State Minister for Primary and Mass Education Md. Zakir Hossen said they would sign an agreement with Nagad to this end within the next couple of days, reports BSS.

The stipend disbursement cost would come down by a third through Nagad as it will provide the disbursement service at only Taka 7.5 for per Taka 1,000.

“Receiving the Nagad’s offer means we could save a lot of money which is being used to spend for disbursement and that is why I think it makes sense to choose Nagad,” the state minister said.

Officials said over the last few years, a privately-owned MFS provider has been receiving Taka 21 from the government as cash-out charges and data management for distributing Taka 1,000 in stipend.

But, this whole work will be done by Nagad at Taka 7.5 for every Taka 1,000. Nagad would contribute the extra money, which would be needed to cash out during sending the stipends, to the beneficiary students.

Under the new agreement, stipends for three months — April to June– will be distributed by Nagad. If the students’ data is received from the ministry within a day or two, they (students) will get the stipend for the previous three months from this month.

Some 13.0 million primary-level students get stipends in this process every year as the government spends about Taka 40.00 billion for it.

Officials familiar with the process said the ministry of primary and mass education had sent a summary to the Prime Minister’s Office with two alternative proposals. It had proposed to go for an open tender method (OTM) or to award it to Nagad directly as a government entity.

Primary and mass education ministry officials said numerous complaints during the distribution of stipends through the privately-owned MFS were received in the last three years such as shortage of sufficient agent points for cash-outs, charging extra money by the agent from students etc.

At present, a primary level student gets a scholarship of Taka 100 to Taka 500 under this stipend programme which has cut the dropout rate down at the primary education level significantly.