DHAKA, July 15, 2019 (BSS) – Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina stressed the need for formulating a master plan to ensure planned development of the country protecting the water bodies, arabale lands and environment as well at the district, upazila and union level.
“We would have to pursue development at district, upazila and even in union level in a well-planned way after formulating a master plan,” she said while inaugurating seven housing development projects at the city’s Eskaton Garden Road area.
Four of the seven projects have been completed by Public Works Department while three others by National Housing Authority and Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (RAJUK) under the Housing and Public Works Ministry.
The prime minister said, “Whatever we want to build whether it is school, college, roads, houses, mills and factories must be constructed in a planned way as we don’t want to allow construction of any development schemes in half-hazard way to give the people a standard live.”
Calling upon the architects and planners to take development plans that suit the weather and climate of the soil, she said, “”You should bear in mind that water bodies must be protected in taking any plan as those are working as water reservoirs. These can hold waters during the rainy season which help to reduce water logging.”
Sheikh Hasina also asked the architects to draw the plans in such a way that roads can be expanded if necessary.
The premier requested all concerned to change the mindset of filling up ponds, canals and water bodies in case of constructing any buildings.
She regretted that nowadays the canals and ponds of Dhaka city cannot be found due to the mindset, “We have already asked the authorities concerned to undertake plans for saving water bodies.”
Highlighting huge development works by her government in the last 10 years, she reiterated her government’s firm determination to make Bangladesh a developing country by 2021 and a developed and prosperous one by 2041. In this context, she said, “We have already made Bangladesh free from hunger and are now working to transform it into a developed and prosperous one before observance of the birth centennial of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 2020 and the golden jubilee of the Independence.”
“But, we don’t want to make the development centering the cities, but also to reach every civic amenities to the villages,” she added.
The prime minister later visited one of the three buildings constructed for grade one government officers on Eskaton Garden Road in the city.
Housing and Public Works Minister S.M. Rezaul Karim and its secretary Md Shahid Ullah Khandaker spoke on the occasion.
A video documentary on the seven projects was also screened at the function.
Inaugurating the seven projects, Sheikh Hasina said, “We inaugurated 1671 flats under seven schemes with having modern facilities for cabinet members, secretaries, other government officials and employees as well as the affected people.”
The prime minister said “I hope the government officers and employees will give more attention to discharge their duties getting residence facilities in the project area with beautiful environment.”
She said that she had already given the instruction to increase the accommodation facilities for the government officials and employees to 40 percent in Dhaka which was only 8 percent in 2014.
“We are set to build 6350 flats under 16 projects of the Housing and Public Works Ministry and there have been allocation for building 1674 more flats under 13 other schemes,” she said.
Besides, the work of constructing 398 flats in 20 abandoned house in Gulshan, Dhanmondi and Mohammadpur areas here and 1824 flats and 64 dormitories in 51 abandoned houses in Chattogram is going on while initiatives have already been taken to build 317 flats by acquiring 15 more abandoned houses, she informed.
“We have already built 1512 flats for the Supreme Court judges, officers and employees of parliament secretariat as well as other government officers and employees and distributed those to them,” she added.
Sheikh Hasina said that her government has already taken initiative to construct 2816 dormitories in 64 districts to increase the housing facilities for the government officials and employees.
Mentioning that her government has been working for accommodation for all, saying “We have already developed a total of 33,526 plots and built 8,922 flats for selling those to lower and middle income people. Of those, 6636 flats under the third phase of Uttara apartment project have already been opened.”
The prime minister said development of 18105 more flats and building of 8039 flats are also going on, adding “We have taken initiatives to develop 18148 plots and one lakh 41 thousand and 687 flats across the country.”
The housing problem of the citizens will be reduced significantly upon completion of the flats development works, she continued.
“We don’t want any people to live in the slum. So we are now building flats for slum dwellers in Dhaka. Work on constructing 533 flats is going on in Mirpur and have a plan to build 16000 more flats for them,” she said.
“We have formulated laws for a well-planned urbanisation and enacted law for making time-befitting Housing and Building Research Institute Ordinance,” she said.