The government is planning to widen the coverage of social safety net for the marginalised and vulnerable people as the Covid-induced loss of income and livelihood might push more people into poverty. To tackle the situation the government is planning to allocate Tk 372.35 billion in FY 2023-24 in social safety net and welfare sector and Tk 344.07 billion in FY 2022-23 The allocation in this sector in the running FY2021-22 is Tk 343.19, according to an official document. The allocation was Tk 295.58 billion in the revised budget of 2020-21 fiscal while Tk 240.86 billion and Tk 239.20 billion in 2019-20 fiscal and 2018-19 fiscal respectively. Read: Covid in Bangladesh: 11,434 more cases, 12 deaths and positivity rate rises to 28.49% Social welfare ministry, women and children affairs ministry, liberation war affairs ministry, food ministry and disaster management and relief ministry are responsible to implement social safety-linked programmes. The document, however, said that the government has set a target to bring down the poverty rate to 12.3 per cent and the extreme poverty rate to 4.5 per cent by FY 2023-24. One of the responsibilities of the social welfare ministry is to distribute various social transfers and social security services among people to eradicate poverty and extreme poverty, it said. "This is considered as an effective tool to ensure inclusive growth, and to achieve that the government has taken the social safety net programme as one of the priority activities," said the document.