PM for splitting Dhaka into three divisions

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina laid stress on administrative decentralisation and said she preferred splitting Dhaka into three separate divisions, report agencies.

She has also urged the public administration ministry to speed up the process.

In a meeting with its officials on Sunday, she said the government wanted to decentralise power gradually.

About splitting Dhaka Division, Hasina said this division with 17 districts is densely populated and it is very hard to run the administration from here. She said an announcement had already been made to turn Mymensingh into a new division, but it would have been better had there been three divisions in Dhaka.

The Prime Minister, however, said the Dhaka Division would now be split into two divisions-Dhaka and Mymensingh, "This has to be done speedily because the longer it will take time the greater complexities will be there."

Recent media reports claimed Hasina had ordered carving out an eighth division at a cabinet meeting.

She said administrative decentralisation was a must to serve the people and work for their development.

"It'd have been best if we could divide Dhaka into three divisions," the prime minister said.

Hasina went to the public administration ministry, a portfolio which she had kept to herself, on Sunday as a part of her plan to visit all the ministries after being re-elected.