Dhaka: The government has initiated a move to revise the 'One House One Farm' project again for the 3rd time with raising its cost by 176.44 percent or by around Tk 5,580.68 crore.

‘As per the proposed 3rd revision of the project, the estimated overall cost of the project will stand at Tk 8,743.65 crore to be entirely borne from the national exchequer,’ a Planning Commission official told UNB.

The official said Department of Cooperatives, Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development (BARD), Bangladesh Rural Development Academy (BRDA) and Bangabandhu Academy for Poverty Alleviation and Rural Development (BAPARD), Palli Sanchay Bank and the DC offices concerned and their subordinate offices have been jointly implementing the project.

According to the proposed 3rd revision, the project implementation period will be extended by another four years till June 2020 with the coverage of the project activities extending up to some 40,950 wards, under some 4,550 unions of 490 upazilas in all the 64 districts of all the eight divisions.

Talking to UNB, another official at the Rural Development and Cooperatives Division said the project mainly aims to help reduce the poverty rate to 10 percent from the existing 22.8 percent through turning every household under the project areas into a sustainable agro-based income generating unit.

The main operations under the proposed 3rd revision will be conducting initial surveys and making database, creating village development organisations, turning at least 60 families of some 40,950 villages into the centre of economic activities, capital formation and extending credit facilities, imparting training on various issues alongside providing technical assistance to the field extension workers and to the beneficiaries to boost their skills, imparting training on setting up solar panels and bio gas plants, setting up exhibition farms and marketing the produces of the beneficiaries through cooperatives.

Earlier on 30 July 2013, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council approved the second revision of the 'Ektee Bari, Ektee Khamar (One House One Farm) project with a cost of Tk 3,163 crore to cover its activities in every villages of the country.

Through the second revision of the ongoing 'One House, One Farm' project, the operations of the project expanded all over the country.