PM orders all out assistance to flood-hit people
With an apprehension of prolonged flood across the country, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today asked the government officials to remain prepared for extending all sorts of support to the flood-hit people if the deluge is lingered.
‘Every kind of assistance would have to be extended to the flood-hit people if the ongoing flooding is prolonged,’ cabinet secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam said quoting the prime minister as saying.
Briefing newsmen after the regular weekly meeting at his Secretariat office Khandker Anwarul Islam said that the prime minister gave them a clear-cut instruction of taking all-out preparations to tackle any situation as there was an apprehension that the flooding may be protracted.
He said the prime minister asked the government officials particularly the field-level ones to stay prepared all the time staying at their workstations to face any situation if the deluge is prolonged.
Simultaneously, the prime minister asked the government officials to be cautious in case of distributing relief materials amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The directives came from a regular weekly cabinet meeting with the Prime Minister in the chair this morning, a day after she gave similar instruction to her party leaders and activists.
The premier joined the meeting from her official Ganabhaban residence here while cabinet members and secretaries were connected from the Secretariat through video-conference.
The cabinet secretary said, ‘The prime minister herself supervises it (the flood situation and relief activities).’
The prime minister directed the local administrations to take prompt measures to accommodate the flood affected people to nearby schools, colleges and madrasahs in case of not having sufficient flood shelters, and give them all sorts of relief materials, particularly water purifying tablets and oral saline and make sure regular vaccination of their domestic animals, he said.
The prime minister asked the agriculture minister to take measures for cashing on the advantage of flood for bumper production of Aman and Ropa Aman (T Aman), the cabinet secretary said citing his experience that bumper productions of paddy were seen after the flooding of 1988 and 1998 when he was a field-level official.
‘The cabinet today gave its final consent to the draft of the ‘Bangladesh Madrasah Education Board Act, 2020,’ Khandker Anwarul Islam said.
The proposed law made some amendments to the existing Madrasah Education Ordinance, 1978 to make it time-befitting in accordance with the Supreme Court order that had declared all the military period laws illegal.
Anwarul added that the draft law incorporated an article 28 to give the Madrasah Education Board’s prior activities under the 1978 ordinance a legal protection so that none of its earlier activity can be challenged as illegal.
Two major changes have been made to the proposed law, he said, adding that the draft has suggested making the board employees as public servants and fixing their retirement age at 60 likewise other education boards.
News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net
