Economy sees imbalanced development

Bangladesh has seen a significant development in several indicators, including access to electricity, use of mobile phone, internet and other technologies in the past six years, but has also failed to achieve expected qualitative uplifting of its citizens.

Despite the fact that 92.2 percent of families have electricity and there has been a significant rise in access to technology, the number of people with ICT skills has not developed accordingly. The country has only 1.4 percent of people aged between 15 and 49 having ICT knowledge. 

Women literacy rate increased to 88.7 percent from 82 percent in 2013, indicating that people are more health conscious now.

However, contrary to this development, physical punishment and psychological aggression on children by caregivers have also increased alarmingly. More than half of the children fall victim to child marriage. Child labour has also increased significantly.

The mother and child mortality rates decreased as people availed services related to pregnancy and delivery from skilled physicians and midwives. 

There is no sign of improvement in the family planning index. The use of the modern family planning method got stuck along with fertility rate remaining stagnant. 

The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) presented the information under a report titled "Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey" on Monday.  

Only 11.5 percent of female use internet whereas 1.9 percent use computer. Around half of every 100 women have exposure to radio, television and newspaper. 

Analysing the indicators provided by the BBS, economists said the economy has observed an imbalanced development.

Improvement in sanitation

The report said availability of safe drinking water, hand washing, using standard toilets have increased recently. Some 98.5 percent of people get pure drinking water; 74.8 percent have the facility to wash hands with soap. However, 81.9 percent of water is not pure, according to the report.

Improvement in reproductive health, family planning halted

The rate of availing reproductive health has increased to 75 percent from 58.7 percent in the last six years. The child delivery in health institutions has increased to 53 percent. More than 98 percent of children get breast milk.

Some 24.2 percent of female give birth to children in their adolescence. Female fertility rate has been halted at 2.3 percent for a few years but the use of the family planning has increased by only one percent. Around 74 percent of people are satisfied in the family planning. 

Violence against women and children rises

Some 88.8 percent of 1-14-year-old-children fall victim to physical punishment in the name of discipline. Besides, 6.8 percent of children are involved in child labour. 

Presenting the report, Projector Director Masud Karim said, "The information has been collected after talking to 24,600 guardians. We have not talked to any child though.

By physical punishment, we have meant not only beating but mild scolding and shouting," he added.

Data-based public opinion and policymaking have been given priority in this census for the development of children in Bangladesh as a middle income country, said Sourendra Nath Chakraborty, secretary to the Statistics and Information Management Division.

Professor Dr Sayema Haque Bidisha, "In a broader sense, we have seen massive improvements in some economic indicators. Those remain much behind in terms of quality. Under this situation, I think there is no balanced development in the socioeconomic indicator."