Prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday asked city planners to keep spaces for adequate water bodies and reservoirs for new townships for environmental reasons and combating disasters like outbreak of fire.
“Whenever any new township would be built, there should be enough water bodies and reservoirs so water is available in case of any fire incident,” she told a meeting relating to planning on the newly-established Mymensingh division at her office this morning.
The premier said the planners must keep in mind the issues of water logging and healthy environment while sketching their blueprints.
Sheikh Hasina she already issued specific and identical directives to authorities concerned in establishing countrywide economic zones and any township.
Citing the example of fire incident in the city’s Bashundhara City Shopping Complex few years back, she said that the fire fighters had to bring water from the Sonargaon Hotel swimming pool to douse the blaze for want of nearby water reservoirs and water bodies.
“Shall our future should only be stuck into swimming pools?” she said adding that all future residential areas must have lakes or ponds to preserve rainwater “as the safest water and important natural resource”.
Members of the cabinet who hailed from Mymensingh region and concerned officials were present at the meeting when the premier asked development planners to be farsighted in outlining blueprints.
In her introductory remarks at a meeting Sheikh Hasina asked them to take into their thoughts the long-term context of structural works to avert future complexities.
“We have a stereotyped mindset of thinking about the present context, but we will have to garner farsighted and transparent thinking to avert future complexities,” she said.
The premier added: “While undertaking any plan, we will have to consider what would be the population in the next 20 to 25 years, what would be the extent of economic activities and our needs at that time.”
The prime minister said the national population now stood at 16 crore, a scenario that warrant more decentralization of authoritative centres to reach services to the common people.
She said that Dhaka was a big division earlier with 17 districts while it was trimmed down with the creation of new division in Mymensingh.
The primer hinted that the central Dhaka division was likely to be sliced further in future.
The premier said, “Soon after the independence, Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman initiated a process for turning all sub-divisions into districts to provide more services to the people through decentralization of power.”
“Bangladesh could have been established as a hunger and poverty-free country much ahead had Bangabandhu been alive,” she added.
The prime minister reiterated her government’s commitment to strengthen further the local government system and said that it is very much essential to decentralize power.
“With the decentralization of power, it would be easier to render more services to common people, especially in the fields of administration, health, education,” she said.
Sheikh Hasina said that with construction and development of necessary divisional infrastructures, the people of greater Mymensingh would have easier access to services more comfortably.
With the establishment of Mymensingh division, she said, a modern and beautiful city would be established on the other bank of the River Brahmaputra.
Referring to her decisions of constructing new office buildings and other establishments in the newly formed divisions like Rangpur and Sylhet, Sheikh Hasina said such decisions were proved appropriate.
In continuation of this, she said, directives were issued by now to set up all establishments and offices in more open and wide areas on the other side of the river Brahmaputra in the newly-constituted Mymensingh division.
She said such steps would help develop better facilities for the people to receive services, while a new “eye catching modern township would also be developed there in a faster pace”.
The premier also renewed her vow to turn Bangladesh into a developed and prosperous ‘Sonar Bangla’ as dreamt by Bangabandhu.
Source: Prothom Alo
