TDS Desk:

Around 19.2% of Bangladesh’s population is living below the poverty line, according to the latest report by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).

The poverty rate stands at 16.5% in urban areas, while it is over 20% in rural areas, the report revealed.

The data was presented in a report prepared by the Poverty and Livelihood Statistics Cell of BBS at an event held at the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre (BICC) in Dhaka on Thursday.

The study was conducted jointly by the World Bank, the World Food Program (WFP), and BBS.

Key findings include:

• Barisal division has the highest poverty rate at 26.6%.
• Chittagong division has the lowest poverty rate at 15.2%.
• Dhaka’s poverty rate has increased by 1.8 percentage points to 19.6%.
• Poverty rates in Rajshahi and Mymensingh divisions have declined.
• Dasar upazila in Madaripur district has the highest number of poor people, with 63.2% of its population living below the poverty line.

Md Mahbub Hossain, secretary of the Statistics and Information Management Department, attended the event as the chief guest.