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73pc rural households use mobiles: survey

Star Business Report
Some 73 percent of Bangladesh's rural households use mobile phones, with Chittagong having the highest number of users and Rangpur the lowest, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) said in a reportyesterday.
IFPRI shared the findings of a survey, conducted on 6,500 households in rural areas of all seven divisions from October 2011 to March 12, at a programme at Ruposhi Bangla Hotel in Dhaka.
The results ofthe survey come at a time when nearly 10 crore of the coun -try's 15 crore population subscribe to six operators: Grameenphone, Bangla-link, Robi, Airtel, Citycell andTeletalk.
The mobile technology was introduced more than two decades ago.
Even half of the poorest 20 percent have mobile phones, said Akhter Ahmed, chief of party of IFPRI's Bangladesh Policy Research Programme, unveiling the results of the survey.
IFPRI survey shows that 81.6 percent of households in rural areas of Chittagong have functioning mobile phones, followed by Khulna at 77.2 percent and Rajshahi at 74.1 percent.
Sylhet, Barisal and Dhaka have above 70 percent of rural families using mobile phones, while Rangpur has 64.3 percent, the lowest concentration.
The survey also looked into various other issues -- such as family welfare, calorie consumption, inequality, literacy rate, adult schooling, access to electricity and sanitary. According to IFPRI, 38.2 percent of families live on less than the purchasing power parity income of $ 1.25 a day.
Rangpur has 65.5 percent of its population living under that income, the highest, while Chittagong has the lowest percentage, at 31 percent.
The level of inequality in consumption also varies across divisions: the highest level of inequality was found in Sylhet and the lowest in Rajshahi.
"Still a high percentage of population is energy deficient," said Ahmed, citing that 35 percent of the rural families consume less than2,122kilocaloriesa day.
Some 17 percent of rural population is severely undernourished, he said, adding that these people consume less than 1,800 kilo calories a day.
The survey also finds less dietary diversity among the people, with rice providing 71 percent of the daily calorie intake. “But dependency on rice for