Government to fast-track projects for Rohingyas

The government would put projects and programme taken for forcibly displaced Rohingyas on the fast track for expediting the repatriation of the ethnic minority Muslims to their homeland Myanmar, a Buddhist majority nation.
Officials said that about half a dozen projects and programmes taken to tackle one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises would be given top priority so that the international communalities could be kept sensitised with the country’s demand for solving the pressing issue at the earliest.
The projects include fencing the makeshift camps in Cox’s Bazar, ensuring proper solid waste management, distribution environment friendly cooking stoves and providing identity cards to over six lakh Rohingyas entering Bangladesh in the fresh influx that began on August 25 and shifting over one lakh Rohingyas to Bhasanchar island in Noakhali at a cost of Tk 2,312 crore, said the officials.
They said the decision to fast-track the projects were made at a meeting of the national coordination council on budget management on November 27, presided over by finance minister AMA Muhith and attended, among others, by planning minister AHM Mostafa Kamal and state-minister for finance and planning MA Mannan.
Mannan told New Age in the past week that solving Rohinyas problems was the most pressing issue for the country.
On November 23, Bangladesh and Myanmar signed an ‘instrument’ on Rohingya repatriation, but both countries were likely to miss the deadline for establishing a joint working group and a terms-of-reference for supervising the return of Rohingyas to Rakhine State of Myanmar.
Mannan said that the government should keep pressure on Myanmar by the international community for speeding up the implementation of the agreement.
The government was not worried about the financial problems created because of Rohingya influx, he said, adding that social problems and law and order were posing serious threat. 
Finance ministry officials said that like the other fast track projects, including Padma Multipurpose Bridge, Metro Railway in Dhaka, Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant and Rampal Thermal Power Plant, fund release to the Rohingya-related projects would be faster.
They said that additional fund of Tk 1,500 crore might be allocated to Bangladesh Navy in the current fiscal to implement the Bhasanchar development project.
Planning minister AHM Mostafa Kamal said that the population of Cox’s Bazar increased substantially due to the ongoing Rohingya influx in addition to over 4 lakh Rohingyas who had taken shelter in Bangladesh since 1978.
Various socio-economic problems are rising due to overpopulation in Cox’s Bazar, he noted. 
According to the proposal, Navy would develop Bhasanchar in the next two years by constructing 120 cluster villages, as many shelter centres and 1,440 other houses.
Each of the cluster villages would be facilitated with a shelter centre, 12 houses with 16 rooms each, and there would be deep tube-well, pond, internal pathway, drainage and sewerage system, and solar panel, power lines and cables, among others.
Besides, embankments would be constructed to protect the island from inundation during high tide.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net