More than 100 million people are currently below the poverty line

Opinion

► About 100 million people are living below the poverty line
► About 20 million more will be added if production decreases by 10%
► Yunus-Jamaat together has completed the success of the last 10 years in alleviating poverty in the country in 18 months

After the Yunus-Jamaat misrule, many have questioned whether famine has begun in the country. Although there is no easy answer to this question, two statistics have been able to emerge from recent economic activity. First, due to the current reality of declining agricultural and industrial production and high fuel prices, about ten (10) million people are at risk of poverty.

And according to the second, if production decreases by another 10%, then about twelve (12) crore people will fall within this range. Let’s know a little more in detail.

Sheikh Hasina’s development and Yunus-Jamaat’s exploitation

Sheikh Hasina successfully tried to bring all sections of the country out of poverty through the development of integrated economic, social infrastructure and communication systems. During her tenure, Bangladesh’s extreme poverty rate decreased from 12.2% in 2010 to 5% in 2023. In 2025, the PPRC Household Income and Expenditure Survey revealed that extreme poverty had increased to 9.35% and about a third of the country’s people were at risk of poverty.

Simply put, Sheikh Hasina has lifted 34 million people out of poverty between 2010 and 2022.

In one of my previous articles, I showed that the country’s extreme poverty rate had fallen below 5% by the time Sheikh Hasina left office in 2024. At that time, at-risk poverty was, in my opinion, around 18% (5% + 13%).

The poverty line has changed a lot in the 18 months of exploitation by Yunus and Jamaat. According to World Bank data as of September 2025, about 62 million people were living under the poverty line. That means, in just one year, the Yunus-Jamaat regime increased poverty in Bangladesh by over 15%.

Due to the exploitation of Yunus and Jamaat, Bangladesh had to sacrifice nearly 10 years (2016-2025) of success in poverty alleviation.

Two experiments

2.1) The last six months of Yunus and the first three months of Tarique Rahman’s (IMF) government

I have tried to analyze these nine months from three new crises. These are:

• a) Fertilizer, seed and irrigation shortages in the agricultural sector,
• b) Production crisis in the industrial sector, and
• c) The income and expenditure crisis of the country’s lower and middle class due to the Middle East and energy crisis.

Let’s look at these parameters in a little more detail.

Agricultural production disrupted

In Bangladesh, 40% of total employment still works in the agriculture sector. The contribution of agriculture to the gross domestic product has declined to 11%. According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the annual agricultural growth rate in the 18 months of Yunus-Jamaat has decreased from 3.21% (2023-24) to 1.79% in 2024-25. At the same time, subsidies in agriculture have decreased by 32%.

In addition to the lack of timely fertilizer and irrigation, the Yunus-Jamaat regime’s failure to purchase agricultural products at reasonable prices in the name of reducing the prices of agricultural products has added to the lack of timely fertilizer and irrigation. As a result, it has recently been seen in various media that while the production cost per kg of potatoes has fallen to 40-60 taka, per maund of potatoes is being sold for 110 taka.

Climate change risks will cause a 14% loss in rice production and a 76% loss in wheat production by 2050. Among these, the Yunus-Jamaat regime has made a robbery agreement with a major country for the purchase of agricultural products. Due to which any kind of hope for Bangladesh’s agriculture is both a luxury and a lie.

Industrial production is hampered

Over a thousand exporting companies have been closed due to mobs, arson and banking sector shutdowns. This has had a direct impact on employment and production. The BBS shows that while the growth in the industrial sector was 9.86% in 2021-22, it has come down to only 6.66% by the end of 2024. The growth in the ready-made garments sector in 2025 was 0.89%, which was 7.23% in 2024.

BKMEA says that production in the ready-made garment sector has decreased by 20-30%. By April 2025, gas prices in the industrial sector were increased by 33% to comply with the IMF conditions. Due to the fuel problem, steel production has decreased by 25-30%, the ceramic sector has decreased by 50% and production in textile mills has decreased by 30-40%.

Energy politics

During Sheikh Hasina’s time, 80% of the energy in the industrial sector came from natural gas, which has come down to 40% in 2025. This has increased the dependence on imported energy by 56%. The amount of load shedding in the industrial sector has risen to 2 hours (total daily shift of 10 hours). The cost of transportation is increasing by about 15-25% due to the impact of increasing fuel costs. 19% or more textile mills are running at 50% or less capacity.

If the price of oil increases by $10, the annual additional cost in the energy sector will be over $1 billion. Even without using it, the annual cost of capacity charges has been 17,193 crore taka. Despite having an installed capacity of 25,951 MW, more than half of the installed capacity remains unused due to political division. This is directly affecting the country’s exports, which have been declining for the last eight months. Ready-made garment production has decreased by more than 50%.

2.2) If the current situation gets worse

Although somewhat unexpected, I wanted to see how much impact a 10% reduction in output growth (simultaneous and bivariate) has on the poverty line. The potential for this 10% drop in growth comes from “opportunity loss”. During Sheikh Hasina’s tenure, output growth averaged 6.5%. Now, it has averaged 3.5% in the last two years. I had previously estimated that it would be even lower this year. In my opinion, the average growth for 25-26 will be somewhere around 2.5-2.8%.

Now, if the average opportunity loss is close to 3% (6.5% – 3.5%) for two or three consecutive years, then my total growth has declined by about 9%. I saw it as dynamic rather than static. For example, when production decreases, many other economic statistics indicate a bad situation. That means a dynamic (and domino) effect is created. Keeping that in mind, a 10% growth decline is unexpected but not impossible.

My search for poverty line changes

So how can the two situations be different? From the attachment, you can see that the poor population is shown in several categories, such as extremely poor, multidimensional poor. According to my research, if the current problem is not solved immediately, about 100 million people will enter the at-risk poverty line. But if the growth of production decreases by 10%, another 1.5 million people will be added to it.

What do we have to do now?

There is a lot written about that. You may not like mine. I have said many times before that Sheikh Hasina has no alternative to get the country out of the situation that Yunus-Razakar has left it in. I can leave the country. 70% of the people cannot. Will you take responsibility for destroying their lives and livelihoods?

References

• Asian Development Bank (ADB). (2024). Bangladesh Poverty Fact Sheet. ADB Basic Statistics.
• Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). (2025). Provisional GDP Data FY2024-25. Government of Bangladesh.
• Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS). (2024). Small Area Estimate (SAE) of Poverty 2022: Trends and Disparities in Selected Districts. BIDS.
• Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD). (2025). Power and Energy Crisis in Bangladesh. CPD Policy Paper
• Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA). (2025). Heavy Import Reliance Fuels
• Bangladesh’s Power Sector Woes. IEEFA
• Ministry of Finance, Government of Bangladesh. (2024). Bangladesh Economic Review 2024. Finance Division
• Power and Participation Research Center (PPRC). (2025). Bangladesh Poverty Survey 2025. PPRC
• United Nations Development Program & Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI). (2024)
• Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2024. UNDP/OPHI
• World Bank. (2025). Bangladesh Poverty and Equity Assessment 2025. World Bank Group
• World Bank. (2025). Bangladesh Development Update, April 2025. World Bank Group

-Dr. Mamunur Rashid
Economist and Teacher