Govt to provide homes to the homeless in flood, erosion
PM says, opens govt shelters for 600 climate refugees
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said the government would arrange housing for those losing their homes in flood and riverbank erosion alongside rehabilitating the landless and homeless people across the country.
"This time the flood looks to be serious… more floods are likely to occur in August and September. We have preparations to face these. We will also arrange accommodations and land for those losing their homes in flood or river erosion," she said.
The PM was addressing a programme marking the opening of special structures built under "Khurushkul Ashrayan Project' in Cox's Bazar for 600 climate refugees.
Hasina inaugurated 20 five-storey structures constructed in the first phase of the world's biggest climate refugee rehabilitation project at Khurushkul on the outskirts of Cox's Bazar town through videoconferencing from the Gono Bhaban.
A total of 600 families are getting their new abodes with all modern facilities in 20 structures, each having 32 flats, constructed on the bank of the Bakkhali river, just three kilometres off the beach town.
At the inaugural function, some beneficiaries were handed keys of the 456-square foot flats.
The premier said the government is taking measures for the rehabilitation of landless and homeless people across the country.
"In the birth centenary of the Father of the Nation, our goal is that not a single person in Bangladesh would remain homeless," she said, adding that the government would arrange home for every person.
Hasina said Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had a dream that Bangladesh would be a hunger- and poverty-free country and her government was on track to fulfil this dream.
About the Khurushkul Ashrayan Project, she said a separate nice township would be developed at the project site. A community clinic and dry fish market would also be set up there, the PM said.
She said her previous government first undertook "Ashrayan Project" during her first term in office (1996-2001) after she witnessed the miseries of people following a devastating cyclone that ravaged the country's coastline in 1997.
The premier said her government wants to develop Cox's Bazar as a beautiful tourist town as the world's longest sandy sea beach is there.
All the newly-constructed structures are equipped with a ramp system for people with disabilities, solar panels, safe drinking water, electricity, sanitation, waste management, drainage, cylinder gas and burner.
As many as 4,409 families of climate refugees will be rehabilitated at the site as 139 five-storey buildings under the Khurushkul Ashrayan scheme being implemented by Bangladesh Army on 253.59 acres of land at a cost of Tk 1,800 crore as part of the Ashrayan Project-2.
Since the Ashrayan Project was launched in 1997, Khurushkul scheme is the country's largest rehabilitation project. The Khurushkul project will have four zones -- residential, tourism, dry fish processing zone and a buffer precinct with greenery.
Its beneficiaries are mostly the victims of the 1991 devastating cyclone that forced them to take refuge at crammed shanties in Cox's Bazar airport area for several decades.
The ground floors of the new buildings have been kept vacant so that floodwater and tidal surge can damage nothing. There are also tube-wells and rainwater harvesting system.
Later, the PM exchanged views with beneficiaries of the project and local dignitaries through videoconferencing.
Chief of Army Staff General Aziz Ahmed also spoke at the function, moderated by PM's Principal Secretary Ahmad Kaikaus.