Transfer of control to hill district councils sought

The International Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission (CHTC) yesterday urged the government to immediately transfer control of remaining important issues, including law and order and land management, to councils of three hill districts as per the 1997 peace accord.
CHTC, in a statement issued by its co-chairs Eric Avebury, Sultana Kamal and Elsa Stamatopoulou, made the appeal marking the 15th anniversary of the CHT Peace Accord's signing, urging the government to implement the accord in full within its present tenure.
The government is yet to transfer control of issues like police (local), secondary education, youth welfare, environment, tourism (local), forests (except reserved forests), and preservation of statistics on birth and death, it said.
Recently functions of some government agencies, including the health engineering department, Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation, Cotton Development Board, Ramgarh Hatchery, and Government Shishu Shadan, were transferred.