BBS, BMET data shows stark contrast

The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) yesterday published its population census for 2022, placing the number of Bangladeshi citizens living abroad at about 50.53 lakh, which is a third of that reported by other government agencies.

Of them, about 40.61 percent are from Chattogram while 28.32 percent are from Dhaka, the BBS said in the "Population and Housing Census 2022: National Report", unveiled at its office in the capital.

Planning Minister MA Mannan and Executive Director of the Policy Research Institute (PRI) Ahsan H Mansur spoke at the unveiling ceremony, among other officials of the ministry and the BBS.

In his budget speech on June 1, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said more than 1.49 crore Bangladeshi workers are employed in 176 countries worldwide.

Similarly, the Bureau of Manpower, Employment, and Training (BMET) had said more than 1.49 crore Bangladeshi citizens have been living abroad from 1976 to January 2023.

Regarding the discrepancies in expatriate data, Dipankar Roy, joint secretary of the Statistics and Information Division, said the BMET's data only includes those who went abroad for work, but not those who returned.

He further clarified that the BBS census is based on individuals who have been out of Bangladesh for at least the past six months.

Asked about the discrepancies, Planning Minister Mannan said he would look into the matter.

Addressing the event, PRI Executive Director Mansur said the actual number of Bangladeshi citizens living abroad is likely aligned or just slightly higher than that reported by the BBS.

Md Kawser Ahmed, member (secretary) of the Bangladesh Planning Commission, said the difference between BBS and government statistics suggests that the former should take steps to unify the data.

Shahnaz Arefin, secretary at the Statistics and Informatics Division, suggested initiating talks with concerned ministries to reduce data discrepancies.

As per the BBS report, the country's total population is 16.98 crore, with 49.54 percent being male and 50.46 percent female.

The average population growth stood at 1.12 percent during the period under census (2011-2022) while it was 1.37 percent previously.

This was the first time that the BBS counted the number of people living in slums as well, revealing a total of 17.36 lakh residents.

Additionally, a floating population of 22,185 was reported, with 77 percent residing in urban areas.

The BBS report also indicates increased rates of religious and technical education compared to the previous census.

General education stands at 89.26 percent, religious education at 7.19 percent, and technical education at 0.81 percent, contrasting with the previous census's 93.71 percent, 5.58 percent, and 0.71 percent, respectively.

Meanwhile, the percentage of the Muslim population has increased, but the percentage of other religions has decreased.

The current percentages are: Muslim 91.08, Hindu 7.96, Buddhist 0.61, Christian 0.3, and others 0.06. In the previous census, these were 90.39, 8.54, 0.62, 0.31, and 0.14 percent respectively.

Dipankar noted that although the percentage of the minority population has decreased, the total number increased in this census.

According to the census report, the Muslim population has grown to more than 15 crore from 13 crore previously while the Hindu population has reached 1.31 crore from 1.23 crore.

Similarly, the Christian population had increased to 4.89 lakh from 4.48 lakh previously, the Buddhist population to 10.2 lakh from 8.9 lakh, and others to 1.1 lakh from 2.2 lakh.

PRI Executive Director Mansur said multi-dimensional data was uncovered by this census and urged the government to incorporate it while enacting policies.