Officials will be suspended if citizen services are disrupted, warns State Minister Mir Shahe Alam
State Minister for Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives Mir Shahe Alam has issued a stern warning that officials will be suspended immediately if municipal waste management and citizen services are disrupted. He also said departmental and administrative action would be taken against those in charge of municipalities that fail to ensure modern waste management and environmentally friendly initiatives.
He was speaking as chief guest at a national workshop held on Wednesday (11 November) at the Kamrul Islam Siddique auditorium of the LGED building in Agargaon in the capital. The workshop was chaired by Md Shahidul Hasan, senior secretary of the Local Government Division.
Highlighting the main problems of urban management, Mir Shahe Alam said waste management is one of a city's main tasks, yet most municipalities have no designated landfill. Dumping waste in open places defeats the purpose of the master plan and puts public health at risk, he said.
He directed that modern landfills with manholes and boundary walls be built quickly, so that electricity and fertiliser can be produced from waste with the help of modern technology.
Expressing dissatisfaction that many officials were absent from such an important workshop, the state minister said the government had spent a large sum of money organising it, yet 17 administrators and 19 municipal executive officers out of 61 municipalities were absent. Such indifference from those in charge calls the workshop's very aims into question, he said, though he praised the presence of engineers and called it positive.
The state minister also said municipal master plans are extremely important, but in the past there were major irregularities in the list because of political influence, leaving many important and eligible municipalities deprived of master plan benefits. In his view, district-based and 'Ka' category municipalities should have been prioritised in the list from the start.
He noted that development projects worth Tk 1,20,000 crore are currently under way across the country through the LGED for infrastructure development under the Local Government Division.
He directed the officials present to focus, alongside building roads, on children's parks, graveyards, safe drinking water supply, conservation of canals and water bodies, and extensive tree plantation.
Giving a message of zero tolerance on administrative harassment in birth and death registration and citizen services, the state minister said there are allegations that some municipalities deliberately suspend services or take unethical benefits from citizens through corruption, and that this will not be tolerated in any way.
He also said action would be taken against municipalities that have left allocations sent for solar panels unused.
Senior officials of the Local Government Division, additional chief and executive engineers of the LGED, teachers of urban and rural planning departments of various universities, and administrators, chief executives and engineers of various municipalities attended the workshop.
