BNP unveils special plans including family card and farmer card

 Bangla Press Desk : The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has announced a set of structural reform plans, including the introduction of a family card and a farmer card, alongside eight sector-based programmes aimed at addressing fundamental challenges in public life and governance.

BNP presented the plans on Tuesday afternoon at a hotel in the capital before diplomats and development partners from various countries. The programme, titled BNP Policy Dissemination on Priority Social Policies, featured BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir as the chief guest.

BNP said representatives from 30 foreign missions attended the event, including Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Yao Wen, the Malaysian high commissioner, and envoys from the United States, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Russia, the European Union, Iran and Bahrain.

Ziauddin Haider, an adviser to the BNP chairperson, presented the keynote paper. He said BNP’s “The Plan”, formulated under the leadership of Tarique Rahman, aligns with the party’s previously announced 31-point reform agenda and identifies eight core social priorities directly linked to people’s daily lives. The paper described the approach as a departure from conventional politics.

Under the proposed family card scheme, BNP plans to provide each family with monthly cash support ranging from Tk2,000 to Tk2,500 or essential food items. The card will remain registered in the name of an adult woman in the household.

The proposed farmer card aims to ensure fair prices for fertiliser, seeds and pesticides, alongside incentives, easy loans and insurance coverage. BNP said the scheme will include crop and livestock insurance to protect farmers from climate risks, diseases and market volatility.

In the health sector, BNP pledged to recruit 100,000 new health workers, with women making up 80 percent of the workforce. These workers will visit households to identify common illnesses. The party also promised doorstep preventive and primary healthcare in both rural and urban areas, 24-hour free medicines from primary health centres, low-cost treatment for major diseases, expanded maternity services at upazila hospitals and year-round mosquito control.

In education, BNP plans to introduce multimedia classrooms, launch a “Learning with Happiness” curriculum from Class Six and make technical education compulsory. Employment-related measures include free internet access in educational institutions and short-term training in foreign languages and skills development.

For sports, BNP outlined plans to establish sports as a profession, introduce mandatory physical education from Class Four, offer scholarships to talented students aged 12 to 14 under the “Notun Kuri Sports” programme, build sports villages with indoor facilities in all 64 districts and expand playgrounds. The party also proposed appointing upazila-level sports officers, setting up BKSP branches in every division and developing a sports equipment industry.

In the environment sector, BNP proposed excavation and re-excavation of 20,000 kilometres of rivers and canals, implementation of the Teesta and Padma barrage projects, plantation of 250 million trees over five years, nationwide integrated waste management and production of fuel and organic fertiliser from waste.

BNP also pledged welfare measures for religious leaders, including monthly honorariums, festival allowances, skills training and expanded mosque-based education programmes. The party said it would extend similar benefits to leaders of other religious institutions.

Addressing the event, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said the country faces multidimensional challenges and argued that BNP has already formulated policies capable of transforming a broken economy into a stable one. He said the policies would pave the way for sustainable development and empower low-income people to recover, ushering in a new era of hope.

He added that BNP’s policy framework aims to ensure broader public participation in economic development and build an inclusive and participatory economy. The party, he said, remains committed to democratic values and culture, with parliament serving as the centre of all decision-making.

BNP Joint Secretary General Humayun Kabir delivered the opening remarks. Advisers Mahdi Amin and Saimum Parvez, International Affairs Secretary Rashedul Haque and other senior leaders also attended the programme.

BP/SP