Govt to buy vessel with water purifying equipment

The government has taken steps to procure a vessel with equipment to purify water of Buriganga River, the shipping minister told parliament yesterday.
Replying to lawmakers' queries, Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan blamed industries for polluting river by dumping liquid waste.
He said the task of extracting waste from the riverbed is going on.
The shipping minister also said the government would consider setting up a central dredging department.
He said six new ships will be purchased for Bangladesh Shipping Corporation.
Meanwhile, replying to lawmakers' queries, Health Minister AFM Ruhul Haque said a process is underway to appoint 13,500 community health care providers to community clinics across the country.
He also informed parliament, as many as 1,745 people have been found HIV positive as of December 2009. Of them, 619 turned into AIDS patients and 204 died.
BNP-led opposition lawmakers did not showed up yesterday.
They joined the inaugural sitting of the current budget session on Wednesday, but walked out on the same day in protest against shutdown of the daily Amar Desh and arrest of its acting editor Mahmudur Rahman.
The speaker at 7:44pm yesterday adjourned the sitting of parliament till 7:00pm today.