"This is mainly due to jump in the price of both food and non-food items and also due to higher consumption of non-food essentials and various social disparity," they added.

They were speaking at a seminar on "Capturing Intra-household Distribution and Poverty Incidence: An Overview," organised by the Bureau of Economic Research (BER), Dhaka University (DU) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada.

BER Chairman Prof MA Matin spoke at the seminar as the chief guest, while former member of Planning Commission Dr Quazi Mesbahuddin Ahmed was present as the special guest. Director of the Bureau Prof Farid Uddin Ahmed chaired the seminar.

Prof Bazlul Huda Khondaker, Selim Raihan and Abdur Razzak presented papers at the seminar. Dr Hasan Zaman, senior economist of the World Bank also spoke.

Prof MA Matin said the findings came in a survey conducted by BER and IDRC on individuals of over 1039 households located both in rural and urban areas of different districts in the country.

Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) and the World Bank conducted the survey on every individual measured as a unit instead of every household, he said.

The method the Bureau follows is much realistic than that the BBS and the WB do because the Bureau considers the calorie requirement of every individual in a family as it varies from person to person, which is not fulfilled due to gender and age disparity, he pointed.

In his paper, Selim Raihan showed the food-poverty rate is higher for the female members of the households, which is 16.85 percent in the rural areas and 4.17 in the urban and 12.41 percent in the country as a whole, against the male food-poverty rate at 11.22 percent in rural, 4.88 percent in urban and 9.2 percent in the country.

With respect to the age, 18-59 years female members in the households are more calorie poor than the male members, he said, adding that the poor calorie rate is significantly higher among the pregnant women.

Under the method, BER conducted the survey, a total of 45 poverty line income was calculated for 33 districts with the highest line for rural areas in Dhaka district and the lowest in the rural areas in Satkhira, he said.