Purchasing planes
Abul Mohsin, Siddheshwari Circular Road, Dhaka
It has been reported in the media that Bangladesh is purchasing some fighter planes from China at a cost of about $ 93 million dollars. Now the question is whether we need fighter planes more urgently than passenger planes for Biman. People have not forgotten the disarray that took place with Hajj flights due to shortage of aircrafts a few weeks ago. Still Biman is unable to maintain its normal flight schedule due to acute shortage of planes. As a result, most of the planes are over-used and the flights have become risky, to put it mildly!We have come to learn that the government has forex reserve of over $3 billion dollars with the Bangladesh Bank, why not release about $300 million dollars out of that reserve to buy 3 or 4 aircrafts from Airbus or Boeing to meet the urgent needs of the people. We should use our scarce foreign exchange judiciously. We must not forget that nearly half of our F.E. reserve comes from foreign remittances sent by our nationals working abroad. Very often we find Bangladeshis cannot return to their workplace on due dates due to non-availability of planes which is likely to land them in trouble with their employers. The government policy makers should look into this aspect of the problem.
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