After hitting a reported new high in August, inflation eased in September for what Planning Minister MA Mannan said wider social safety-net programmes taken by the government for the commoners.
The minister, however, wouldn't divulge the inflation data of the last two months -- August and September -- for procedural reasons.
Unofficial sources, however, say the rate of inflation in August climbed to 9.2 per cent from 7.48 per cent in July.
The inflationary pressure had mounted in the last few months under impact of overheated global oil prices and of other products, apparently as an economic rebound following corona die-down was upended by Ukraine war in a preemptive putsch by Russia against NATO expansion.
The minister was talking at the inauguration of a training course on 'Post-enumeration check of the Population and Household Census 2022' on Monday at Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) in Dhaka.
The BIDS has been assigned for post-enumeration check (PEC) of the population census, conducted by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).
The institute people will go for collecting data in 354 sample areas across the country on October 10-16 for the crosscheck of the head and house counts.
Earlier in July, the BBS in preliminary census data showed that Bangladesh is home to 165.16 million people.
The country's population has increased by 15.38 million from 149.77 million 11 years ago in 2011, according to the preliminary findings in the latest census.
Planning Minister Mr Mannan at the BIDS programme said the inflation data of the past two months -- when price spirals peaked -- would be released within a few days.
He mentioned a special recipe for relief of the down-and-outs from the bite of burning inflation amid price rises, in lockstep with a global crunch. "The government has been providing essential products at lower prices to 10 million families across the country. Some forty million people are getting benefit from this family card of safety-net programme," he said.
Besides, some other programmes and policy of the government helped to ease the inflationary pressure last month, September, despite a higher figure in the previous month (August).
Mr Mannan made it clear that they were not taking any clever stance on disclosing the inflation data rather taking some time because of processing-related delays.
Meanwhile, State Minister for Planning Prof Shamsul Alam said the BBS data could be more authentic and quality one if the bureau could work more independently.
"We hope the BBS will work more independently and provide quality data in the future days," he added.
The training programme was also attended by Planning Secretary Mamun-Al-Rashid, Information and Informatics Division Secretary Dr Shahnaj Arefin, BBS Director-General Matiur Rahman and Population and Housing Census 2022 project director Dildar Hossain.
