CHATTOGRAM, May 16: Bangladesh is set to become a middle-income country free from poverty and hunger through implementation of the 10 special initiatives of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina by 2021, officials said.
The government has set its sights on bringing down the extreme poverty rate to 8.0 per cent by the year 2020, they mentioned.
Noting that digitalisation is one of the main programmes of the government, they said a total of 5,735 digital centres have been set up across the country.
As the digital technology is flourishing fast, the country has got 130 million mobile phone users and 70 million internet users, they said at an exchange of views meeting here on Wednesday.
The meeting, where the representatives of government officials working at implementation level of different development works, exchanged opinions with the members of media, was held to inform the people about the progress of the government's special initiatives.
Additional Deputy Commissioner (general) of Chattogram Md Habibur Rahman attended the programme as the chief guest. Deputy Director of Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA), Chattogram, Moazzem Hossain, and Additional Police Super AKM Emran Bhuiyan were present as the special guests.
The meeting was informed that a target has been set to include 10 million families, who are yet to get rid of poverty, under multiple development schemes aimed at achieving the zero level of poverty by 2021.
Habibur Rahman said digitalisation is one of the very important programmes of the government and the main objective of which is to build the country based on information technology for achieving the Vision 2021.
A total of 5,735 digital centres have been set up throughout the country down from union level to the city level, he said.
As the digital technology is flourishing fast, the country has got 130 million mobile phone users and 70 million internet users, he added.
PDB Assistant Chief Engineer Imam Hossain focused on the progress made so far in power generation, distribution and transmission line projects which are under implementation and planning in the Chattogram region.
He said there are currently 18 power generation plants with the production capacity of about 1700 megawatts. In the private sector, some projects are being implemented by different companies, including S Alam, RPCL, Anlima, United, Acorn, Karnaphuly, Energies, Baraka and ECPV with generation capacity of 2,500MW.
In renewable energy projects, land transfer for a 60 MW solar power plant at Rangunia and 7.4 MW solar power plant at Kaptai is at the final stage, he informed the meeting.
The remote areas like hill districts of Khagrachhari, Rangamati and Bandarban are being brought under the Health Grid Network (HGN) under which 15 grid sub-stations of 5000 MVA capacity will be constructed through seven projects at the cost of Tk 100 billion (Tk 10,000 crore), he added.
Presided over by Deputy Principal Information Officer of PID, Chattogram, AKM Azizul Haque the meeting was also addressed by ADC (revenue) Md Delwar Hossain, Deputy Director of the Department of Environment Sk Md Nazmul Huda, Assistant Chief Engineer of PDB, Chattogram, Imam Hossain, Deputy Civil Surgeon Dr Humayun Kabir, Assistant Director of Social Services Omar Faruk, District Education Officer Jahangir Alam, Education Officer (monitoring) Zahidul Islam and Women Affairs Officer Atiya Chowdhury.
© 2024 - All Rights with The Financial Express
