DHAKA: Rights organizations Wednesday urged the government to take development activities down to grassroots level abolishing the centralization, as people’s tendency is to move out to cities being whipped by agonies of employment in rural areas.    

As a result of the rural-to-urban migration, people in the cities are losing their living standard. That’s why the development drive should be dispersed to the grassroots.

The suggestions came from a roundtable discussion jointly organized by International Dialogue Aid Foundation (IDAF) and Programme For Helpless and Lagged Societies (PHALS) at CIRDAP auditorium in the city with Abu Morshed Chowdhury, Chairman of PHALS in Cox’s Bazaar Branch, in the chair.

Enamul Haque Mostafa Shaheed, Minister for Social Welfare, said in his speech as chief guest, “We should protect Cox’s Bazaar for the sake of our interest. If the huge natural resources and panoramic sights of the district are destroyed by climate change, the country will sink into Monga.”

Many apartments are being built around the Cox’s Bazaar coast. “I apprehend if it is becoming a city like Dhaka city. We have to prevent unitedly any unplanned structures,” he added.

AKM Mozammel Haque MP, Chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on Land Ministry, and Prof Kazi Saleh Ahmed, former Vice-chancellor of Jahangirnagar University, among others, also spoke at the roundtable.

BDST: 1932 HRS, May 26, 2010
RT/MMA/MUA