No go-ahead for film archive building

Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) had started the construction of a road on the designated plot of Bangladesh Film Archives at Agargaon in the city. However, the work has been suspended.
Photo Courtesy: Tareque Masud

Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) has arbitrarily embarked on road construction across a plot designated for Bangladesh Film Archives in the city's Agargaon administrative zone.
Housing and public works ministry in 1993 allotted the 112.5-katha (1.86 acres) plot in favour of the film archive.
Md Abdul Hai, executive engineer of Public Works Department (PWD), in a letter to the DCC executive engineer (zone-7) on December 20 said the proposed road was shown in an unapproved design and could not be built across the administrative plots.
A Tk 75-crore project funded by Japan Debt Cancellation Fund (JDCF) is awaiting final nod to build a 15-storey archive complex on the plot with modern facilities.
But DCC Chief Engineer Brig Gen Abdul Quadir said the Tk 83.72 crore project of Mirpur Grameen Bank-Agargaon Link Road was approved by Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec).
Dr Mohammad Jahangir Hossain, director general of the archive, said he checked with Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk) and found that the proposed road is not in the Rajuk master plan.
Brig Quadir claimed that Rajuk initially had this road in its master plan but later it altered the plan and did not inform DCC.
However, DCC postponed the construction work recently after Information Secretary Dr Kamal Abdul Naser Chowdhury had written to the DCC authorities asking them not to go ahead with the road construction plan.
Officials said lack of coordination among the government agencies and delay in project approval have led to the situation.
The archive has ever been without a proper address since it was established in 1978 due to callousness of the successive political governments resulting in loss of many invaluable films, said top officials and filmmakers.
Noted filmmaker Tareque Masud said construction of the archive premises has been deferred time and again due to fund crisis and lack of commitment of the decision makers.
The information secretary said the project proposal is awaiting final nod at Planning Commission. It requires the approval of Ecnec as it is worth above Tk 25 crore.
“Many timeless movies made by Zahir Raihan and Alamgir Kabir on the country's core history have been damaged due to callousness of the political governments,” said Tareque Masud.
The archive was shifted from one rented house to another one ever since it was instituted.
Great damage to the collections occurred in 11 years when the archive was housed at the servant quarters of Sangsad Bhaban from 1987 to 1998.
Expensive equipment like dehumidifiers, air conditioners and editing machines for film preservation were damaged during that time as those were out of use.
Jahangir said the archive's collection has a total of 2,308 local and foreign films, including features, documentary newsreels and short films, around 25 films on liberation war and 10 to 15 films by world famous Lumiere Brothers of France.
There are also 8,000 film posters, 20,000 still photographs, 2,000 film scripts and 3,000 film-related books.
The archive will comprise film vault, library, administrative building, projection hall, museum, research centre, festival office and appreciation theatre.
At present, the archive is housed at the national broadcasting centre at Shahbagh.