Govt plans incentives for semi urban housing
The government is planning to provide incentives for building houses in semi urban areas, particularly in areas that are outside municipalities in the country in the next budget, Finance and Planning Adviser Dr AB Mirza Azizul Islam said.
The adviser said this at a seminar in Dhaka yesterday, but did not elaborate on whether the incentive would come in cash or any other form.
Bangladesh Institute of Planners organised the seminar on 'Importance of Local and Regional Planning for Achieving the Goals of PRSP' at its auditorium in Dhaka.
The adviser also said, “The government is very concerned at the regional disparity,” while citing the example of what happened in Nigeria as a possible consequence of widening regional resource gap.
He said, “Chittagong division receives 25 per cent of total remittance earning of the country, while it is only one per cent of that received by Rajshahi division.”
On the widening intra-sector inequality, he said,
“We feel there exists disparity among human resources of different sectors”.
Prof Selim Rashid, professor of Economics at Illinois State University, USA, said instead of continuum there has been widening divide in education between urban and rural areas.
“ Good planning would provide more autonomy for information and incentive at the local level,” he said, adding that the government's role is to coordinate the locally envisaged plans.
“ Dhaka was a very big city during the Mughal Empire, because there had been many canals across the city that could be used for transportation. But, we have destroyed these canals in absence of plans,” said Prof AMM Safiullah, vice chancellor of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.
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