A good initiative goes awry
Pictures of newly built tin shed low-cost houses, crumbling pathetically so soon after construction is an extremely good example of extraordinary bad planning and unnecessary haste. The houses were constructed to put in effect the prime minister's laudable objective of giving low-cost houses to the poor, about 70,000 by January this year in the first phase and another 50,000 by June 20, as a Mujib Borsho gift to the indigents. But the praiseworthy intention has, unfortunately, suffered a blemish. Nothing can be more embarrassing for the administration than to see systemic inefficiency so blatantly exposed.
Everything with the project that had to go wrong went wrong, everything that one must avoid, every limitation in terms of location, land and environment, that should have been corrected and removed, was left unaddressed. Even the costing, was flawed. Every brick house which consisted of two rooms, a kitchen and a toilet and a running porch were allocated Tk 1.7-1.9 lakh. That amount, by even the most conservative estimate seems to be woefully inadequate. And this is not from one single location. As of now, complaints have been received from 22 upazilas in 24 districts where the project was undertaken.
It seems that haste has played the most dominant factor in this very embarrassing debacle. And the blame must go directly on the shoulders of the planners as well as the project implementation committee (PIC). We wonder what was the hurry to finish construction in such quick time. Even the most incorrigible ignoramus would know that construction of a building requires a particular period of time. There is no point in the government engineers saying now that there was mishap at every step. Was there no engineer in the planning committee? By whom, we ask, was the PIC made up of? We cannot believe that there was no one in that committee who could tell the PMO that the nature of the soil would levy more time in construction than initially planned. What should we make of the statement of the chairman of the PIC that the houses were built on shifting soil? Our question is, if this was a known fact, why was the construction allowed to proceed?
Our gut feeling is, money was allotted first and then the rest of the actions followed. The coat was cut according to the cloth provided. And the cloth was not enough. The result was that hopes and dreams of the poor recipients have been dashed. We would hope that the investigation by the PMO would not only be able to identify the flaws, but also those responsible for the embarrassment. After all, the money belongs to the people and no one should be allowed to play around with it. Those in the administration who care little for public money should be taught a good lesson that tinkering with poor people's money comes at a cost.
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