The daily wages of a day laborer in rural Bangladesh is roughly around Taka 80-120 during the harvesting season. In the lean periods, it’s much much lower, if he is lucky to get employment at all. A rickshawalla, from what I understand, gets to keep about Taka 90-120 of his earnings at the end of a hard day of toil and trouble, and this is one a good day. That’s the money that’s used to pay for food and shelter, for himself and his family.

But now the government will force him to spend Taka 30 of that amount for a laminated mandatory national ID card.  So a four member family will have to spend Taka 120 - roughly a day’s worth of labor - to get access to the courts of the land, other government services, and even the services of microfinance institutions.

The word “disenfranchisement” comes to mind.

The National ID is a good idea. But being counted as a citizen of the land should not be contingent on being able to pay for being counted.