Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies at a virtual seminar on Wednesday estimated that about 1.64 crore people already became new poor in the country due the ongoing COVID-19 pendemic. Due to the shutdown induced by COVID-19, the number of new poor increased by at least 9 percentage points to 29.4 per cent from 20 per cent, BIDS researcher Binayak Sen said in his paper on ‘Poverty in the Time of Corona: Short-term Effects and Policy Responses’.

A research paper titled “Poverty in the time of Corona: Short-term Effects of Economic Slowdown and Policy Responses through Social Protection”, conducted by Binayak Sen, Research Director of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), estimated the figure.