Commercial banks will be involved in the process under new arrangement, he said. Applicants will file petitions with a bank, which will deliver passport after a certain period.

He was addressing as chief guest at a view exchange meeting after inaugurating a newly built auditorium of Bangladesh Rural Development Training Institute (BRDTI) in the city yesterday.

Anwarul Iqbal said local government bodies will be strengthened and a commission is working on it. Its report will be available in about three months, he said.

Local governments will be made self- reliant and given grants and development assistance considering their performance in different sectors like tax collection, sanitation coverage etc, he said. Bureaucratic tangles on the way will be removed.

In the first phase, 1000 out of total 4500 Union Parishads will be selected for development assistance considering their performances stage.

Sylhet Divisional Commissioner -Aziz Hasan chaired the function while Rural Development and Co-operatives secretary -Muhammad Nazrul Islam, BRDB Director General Abdus

Sobhan Sikder, Sylhet BRDTI Director AKM Enayetullah Chowdhury, DIG of police in Sylhet Syed Shah Zaman Raj, Deputy Commissioner Harun ur Rashid Khan and Sylhet DMP Deputy Commissioner Manzur Ahmed also spoke. Local body leaders were also present at the meeting.

The LGRD advisor said remittances by non-resident Bangladeshis are on the rise and may reach 6 billion US dollars next financial year. The government is contemplating honouring high level NRB remitters by offering special treatment at airports on their arrival, he said.