Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Atiur Rahman, hands over scholarship to a student at a function at BB Head Office in Dhaka Thursday.

Bangladesh Bank (BB) has asked all the banks to introduce scholarship programme for poor but meritorious students as they are not capable of continuing their higher education, a high official of the central bank told reporters Thursday.

The objective of the central bank initiative is to bring more underprivileged students under the coverage of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) activities implemented by banks.

The central bank is likely to send a letter to all 47 banks operating in the country asking implementation of the scholarship programme from the current calendar year.

“We are to send letters to all banks soon, more likely by today, in this regard,” said deputy governor of the central bank, SK Sur Chowdhury.

Chowdhury said the number of students receiving scholarship annually by few banks including Dutch Bangla Bank Ltd, South East Bank Ltd and Prime Bank Ltd at present is merely 5,000 in total.

“Of them, DBBL alone covers 4,000 students every year while the numbers of students getting scholarship by other banks is meager,” he said.

Chowdhury said the amount the DBBL disburse under scholarship programme has been curtailed last year compared to the previous year which is affecting the bank’s reputation.

“I don’t want to see a declining trend in scholarship coverage. I want, DBBL will increase the amount again so that more students can be benefited,” he said.

Chowdhury said the scholarship coverage for underprivileged students may be increased significantly if all the banks came ahead with the initiatives.

He said, banks’ CSR in scholarship programme would contribute to develop human resources in the country.

News: The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/21th-Dec-12