Planning Division and Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics

The Ministry of Planning (পরিকল্পনা মন্ত্রণালয়, Parikalpanā Mantraṇālaẏ) is the ministry of the Government of Bangladesh responsible for national development planning and for the national statistical system. It contains four units: the Planning Division (পরিকল্পনা বিভাগ), the Statistics and Informatics Division (পরিসংখ্যান ও তথ্য ব্যবস্থাপনা বিভাগ), the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (বাস্তবায়ন পরিবীক্ষণ ও মূল্যায়ন বিভাগ) and the Bangladesh Planning Commission ¹. The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) sits under the Statistics and Informatics Division ⁹.

Head of the ministry

As of 19 September 2026 the Minister of Planning is Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury, MP, in office since 17 February 2026, who simultaneously holds the Finance portfolio ².

The Secretary of the Planning Division is S. M. Shakil Akhtar, posted to the division as Secretary on 3 November 2025 ³⁴. The Secretary of the Planning Division serves as Member-Secretary of the Planning Commission ⁵. The Secretary of the Statistics and Informatics Division is Md. Firoz Sarkar ⁸¹⁴.

The Planning Commission and the development programme

The Planning Commission, within the ministry, is responsible for development planning and for preparing the Annual Development Programme (ADP). Its General Economics Division prepared the government’s Five-Year Strategic Framework for Reform and Development covering July 2026 to June 2031, and the FY2026–27 ADP framework was prepared by an advisory committee under that division ⁵.

The ministry’s planning machinery operates through two apex committees:

• The National Economic Council (NEC), the apex body that finalises and approves plans and the ADP, chaired by the Prime Minister. The NEC approved the FY2026–27 ADP of Tk 3,00,000 crore and policy-approved the Five-Year Strategic Framework on 18 May 2026 ⁶.
• The Executive Committee of the NEC (ECNEC), the approval authority for individual development projects ¹¹.

The FY2026–27 ADP provides Tk 3,00,000 crore, comprising Tk 1,90,000 crore from government financing and Tk 1,10,000 crore from foreign loans and grants; including self-financed projects of autonomous bodies and corporations, the outlay totals Tk 3,08,924.83 crore. The programme contains 1,277 new projects, 971 investment and survey projects with an allocation of Tk 1,78,914.63 crore, and 107 technical-assistance projects with Tk 2,796.28 crore ⁷.

The Statistics and Informatics Division

The Statistics and Informatics Division (SID) is a separate division under the Ministry of Planning, which administers the national statistical system and houses the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics ⁸⁹. Its existence as a distinct division is on the record in an official Government Order of 20 July 2026 issued under its own name, and in the imprint of the Bangladesh Statistical Yearbook 2025, which reads "Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics — Statistics and Informatics Division, Ministry of Planning" ⁸⁹.

Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics

The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (বাংলাদেশ পরিসংখ্যান ব্যুরো, Bānlādesh Parisankhyān Byuro) is the national statistical office, under the Statistics and Informatics Division of the Ministry of Planning ⁹. Its Director General, named in an official BBS document of July 2026, is Mohammed Mizanur Rahman ¹⁰.

Legal basis and mandate

BBS operates under the Bangladesh Statistics Act, 2013, which sets out its census and survey obligations, and census powers also rest on the Census Order, 1972 (amended 1980), which authorises the Director General to plan, supervise and conduct censuses ¹¹¹². Its activities include the population census, the agricultural census, the fisheries and livestock censuses and the economic census, together with the production of GDP growth, Consumer Price Index and labour-force survey data ¹¹. BBS is organised into six divisions: agriculture; census; demography and health; industry; national accounts; and computer ¹¹.

Under a Ministry of Planning policy on the preparation, publication and preservation of statistics, the BBS Director General may release survey and census results, inflation, GDP and labour-force data without the prior approval of the Planning Minister ¹¹.

The 2022 Population and Housing Census

The sixth Population and Housing Census began nationally on 15 June 2022 and was extended to 28 June 2022 because of flooding in the north-east; the preceding census had been in 2011 ¹². The final adjusted result was published on 9 April 2023: a total population of 169,828,911, arrived at by applying a 2.75 per cent net coverage error correction to the initially enumerated 165,158,616 ¹². The reported composition was 68.34 per cent rural (116,066,925) and 31.66 per cent urban (53,761,986); 49.51 per cent male (84,077,203), 50.43 per cent female (85,653,120), and 12,629 recorded as Hijra ¹².

Verification notes

• The census household count is not published here. The official census report PDF was located but could not be text-extracted, and no household figure was retrievable from a T1 or T3 source. No figure is substituted.
• The Bangla name of the Statistics and Informatics Division and the date of taking office of its Secretary were not confirmed from a T1 page; the name given above is as used in an official order issued under the division’s letterhead ⁸.
• BBS’s own website returned no readable content to a direct fetch; the figures above are drawn from official BBS-published documents and from reporting of the census result ^9101112.
• `plandiv.gov.bd` ¹³, `plancomm.gov.bd` ¹³ and `sid.gov.bd` ¹⁴ are client-rendered; their content could not be read directly, and the structural statements above rest on the National Portal listing and on official documents issued by the divisions ¹⁵⁸.

Sources

14 sources cited. Tiers: T1 official or primary, T2 scholarly or curated, T3 media of record.

1. Bangladesh National Portal — List of Ministries and Divisions (Ministry of Planning and its divisions) — Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (T1, accessed 2026-09-19). https://bangladesh.gov.bd/views/ministry-and-directorate-list
2. Honourable Minister’s Profile — Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury, MP — National Board of Revenue, Internal Resources Division, Ministry of Finance (T1, accessed 2026-09-19). https://nbr.gov.bd/about-us/finance-minister-profile/eng
3. S M Shakil Akhtar posted as Secretary, Planning Division — Bangladesh Pratidin (English) (T3, accessed 2026-09-19). https://en.bd-pratidin.com/national/2025/11/03/50075
4. Planning Ministry Secretary SM Shakil Akhtar (report on Planning Ministry proceedings) — Prothom Alo (English) (T3, accessed 2026-09-19). https://en.prothomalo.com/bangladesh/government/9kss22na2m
5. Five-Year Strategic Framework for Reform and Development, July 2026 – June 2031, Volume I — Planning Division, Ministry of Planning, Government of Bangladesh (T1, accessed 2026-09-19). https://objectstorage.ap-dcc-gazipur-1.oraclecloud15.com/n/axvjbnqprylg/b/V2Ministry/o/office-plandiv/2026/7/5dc3bd04-e9f0-4ed3-9d3b-a1f4bdf926c5.pdf
6. Govt boosts development spending by 30pc for FY27 (NEC approval of the ADP) — The Daily Star (T3, accessed 2026-09-19). https://www.thedailystar.net/business/news/govt-boosts-development-spending-30-fy27-4178486
7. National Budget 2026–2027 (Annual Development Programme detail) — Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS), national news agency (T3, accessed 2026-09-19). https://www.bssnews.net/national-budget-2026-2027/394878
8. Statistics and Informatics Division — Government Order, 20 July 2026 — Statistics and Informatics Division, Ministry of Planning, Government of Bangladesh (T1, accessed 2026-09-19). https://objectstorage.ap-dcc-gazipur-1.oraclecloud15.com/n/axvjbnqprylg/b/V2Ministry/o/office-sid/2026/6/a99b2253-a08f-4fc1-814f-5cc10bb8f17c.pdf
9. Bangladesh Statistical Yearbook 2025 — Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Statistics and Informatics Division, Ministry of Planning (T1, accessed 2026-09-19). https://objectstorage.ap-dcc-gazipur-1.oraclecloud15.com/n/axvjbnqprylg/b/V2Ministry/o/office-bbs/2026/5/28b3bbba-9e5c-47b9-8ec5-ebab10e19655.pdf
10. BBS Strategic Priorities document (names the Director General), July 2026 — Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (T1, accessed 2026-09-19). https://objectstorage.ap-dcc-gazipur-1.oraclecloud15.com/n/axvjbnqprylg/b/V2Ministry/o/office-bbs/2026/7/6538ab85-1370-4465-9a7b-3f4c5f1e926f.pdf
11. Planning Ministry policy allows BBS to release data without prior approval — Prothom Alo (English) (T3, accessed 2026-09-19). https://en.prothomalo.com/bangladesh/4sx7ic44m5
12. Bangladesh’s total population stands at 169,828,911 — New Age (reporting the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics final census result) (T3, accessed 2026-09-19). https://www.newagebd.net/article/199023/bangladeshs-total-population-stands-at-169828911
13. Planning Division — official website — Planning Division, Ministry of Planning, Government of Bangladesh (T1, accessed 2026-09-19). https://plandiv.gov.bd
14. Statistics and Informatics Division — official website — Statistics and Informatics Division, Ministry of Planning, Government of Bangladesh (T1, accessed 2026-09-19). http://sid.gov.bd

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