Frontline workers will get priority for Covid-19 vaccine: PM
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today said the government is making every effort to bring Covid-19 vaccine to Bangladesh fast.
The prime minister said this while addressing the nation on the occasion of completing two years of her third-term government.
"By the grace of Almighty Allah, the infection and death rates in Bangladesh are still very low. We are trying our best to control this pandemic. Good news is, several countries are rolling out Covid-19 vaccines. We are trying our best to bring vaccines in Bangladesh too," the prime minister said.
"Immediately after the vaccine arrives, doctors, healthcare workers, law enforcement personnel and other frontline fighters will be vaccinated on a priority basis," she said.
Will do everything to ensure people's civic, democratic rights
Addressing the nation, the prime minister said her government will do everything necessary to ensure the civic and democratic rights of the people.
"We'll do whatever necessary to ensure the civic and democratic rights of the people upholding the rule of law," she said.
NO CORRUPT TO BE SPARED
The PM said some unscrupulous people are always making efforts to misappropriate the wealth of the people using various underhand tactics, UNB adds.
Noting that her government has taken a strong stance against corruption, she said: "The corrupt aren't being spared and they won't be in the future irrespective of their political affiliation or how powerful they are.
Hasina said Bangladesh has established itself in the global stage as a country having self-dignity in her last 12-year rule.
"Bangladesh achieved tremendous development in the socio-economic and infrastructure sectors," she said, adding that the country has the 9th strongest economy in the list of 66 emerging economies, according to the Economist's 2020 report.
Bangladesh will become the 26th largest economy in the world within 2030 as per the projection of World Economic Forum, she noted.
She said Bangladesh will become an upper-middle-income country by 2031 and a high-income, prosperous and dignified country by 2041. Bangladesh graduated as a developing country before 2021, she said.
Hasina said she thinks that it is their duty and responsibility as the government of the people to improve the living standard of the country's citizens. "It's up to you to evaluate what we've done for the people in the last 12 years," she said.
She noted that her government formulated the country's 2nd Perspective Plan 2021-2041 as a strategic document of the Vision 2041 and recently approved the 8th Five-Year Plan 2021-2025 as well as the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100.
The PM said it was projected that some Tk 64,959.8 billion to be required to implement the 8th Five-Year Plan. Poverty rate will come down to 15.6 percent, while the extreme poverty rate will fall to 7.4 percent following the implementation of the plan.
Besides, the implementation of the prime minister's 10 initiatives will continue simultaneously to help alleviate poverty, she said.
"Despite the coronavirus pandemic, our economy is moving in the right direction," Hasina said, focusing on the implementation progress of different mega projects.
Noting that 82 percent work of the Padma Bridge has been completed, she said hopefully, it'll be possible to open the bridge to traffic next year.
She said the works of other mega projects are going on in full swing as well. Rail tracks have been installed in the 14-km Uttara-Agargaon portion of the metro-rail project and trains for the route will come soon from Japan.
In her 30-minute speech, she also focused on her government's development activities in different sectors including health, social safety net, railway, aviation and ICT.
TAKE EFFECTIVE STEPS TO RESOLVE ROHINGYA CRISIS
The prime minister urged the international community to take more effective measures over the repatriation of the Rohingyas to their homeland in Myanmar's Rakhine State.
She said the government continues all sorts of effort to send back some 1.1 million forcibly displaced Rohingyas peacefully to their homeland.
Bangladesh constructed high-quality abodes in Bashan Char for 100,000 Rohingyas to ease their sufferings in Cox's Bazar camps. Only the Rohingya refugees who are willing to live there are being sent, she added.
GOLDEN JUBILEE CELEBRATION DEPENDS ON VIRUS SITUATION
Hasina said the golden jubilee of Independence will be celebrated on a large scale if the coronavirus situation improves at that time.
The coronavirus outbreak forced the government to call off large scale 'Mujib Borsho' programmes to mark the birth centenary of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. It also had to scale down or cancel various other programmes to tackle the spread of the virus.
In her speech, the Prime Minister urged the people of the country to take a fresh vow to build Bangladesh as a poverty-hunger-illiteracy-free non-communal welfare country as dreamt by the Father of the Nation, upholding the spirit and ideology of the Liberation War.
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