March 29, 2024, 10:50 am


Staff Correspondent

Published:
2021-09-30 16:12:28 BdST

Urban planners call for planned development in municipalities


Urban planners have stressed the need for planned development in the municipalities across the country to ensure civic amenities in line with growing number of people.

They were addressing a virtual discussion jointly organised by Mayors Association of Bangladesh Communities Project of the UNDP on Wednesday.

At the discussion, mayors, however, said that empowerment of local government bodies was important too to promote the services of the people.

Bangladesh Institute of Planners general secretary and also Urban Planning professor Adil Mohammad Khan said, “Urban areas in Bangladesh are growing rapidly without following any plan.”

“If we cannot ensure planned development in municipalities at the very beginning, it would be quite impossible to change them later on,” he said.

In this regard, he noted that some municipalities have their master plan but just in papers. Open spaces, waste management, housing and traffic management are still considered as common challenges in most of the cities across the country.

People of the cities especially capital city Dhaka suffer more as most of the cities were not developed as per their respective plan.

Madaripur Municipality mayor Khalid Hasan Yead and also general secretary of the MAB, said that municipalities were struggling to ensure basic civic services with their limited resources and manpower.

“Institutional and financial empowerment of municipalities is a must for ensuring better services,” he said.

Mustakim Billah Faruqui, additional secretary of the Local Government Ministry, said, “The government is planning to appoint executive officers in all the municipalities in a bid to empower all the municipalities.”

The government is also working to appoint physicians and other necessary manpower to boost the civic services as well as revenue earnings from the local bodies, he said.

“If the municipalities can earn more revenue, they could do a lot more for the people,” he said.

The discussion was addressed, among others, by MAB executive president and mayor of Savar municipality Md Abdul Goni.

Unauthorized use or reproduction of The Finance Today content for commercial purposes is strictly prohibited.


Popular Article from National