Ctg needs modern, adequate facilities to attract tourists

CHATTOGRAM, Dec 30: Lack of recreation places and absence of modern amusement facilities have been depriving the port city-dwellers and tourists of proper entertainment.
There are no proper entertainment places like modern park with adequate amusement facilities and items, including rides for children and adults, modern cinema halls, hi-tech parks and cyber cafe, theatre halls and open spaces for recreation of more than five million (50 lakh) dwellers of the southeastern divisional city.
Every year, a large number of domestic visitors arrive in Chattogram, the second biggest city of Bangladesh, from other parts of the country simply for visiting, making business tour, holidaying and other entertainment purposes.

A tigress is affectionately cuddling her cubs in a cage of the Chattogram Zoo — collected photo

Also, there are a large number of international arrivals in Chattogram city, the commercial hub of the country, every year, according to data provided by Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation (BPC) and the customs & immigration authorities. Visitors from overseas countries come here either for business purpose or making tour.
But both, the domestic and foreign visitors slash the time of stay here that they make in their original tour plan and leave the city disappointed after finding no recreation place to properly spend their idle time.
Movie hall is one of the places for recreation but that is also negligible in number in the port city. Whatever movie theatres are existing here currently are old, dilapidated and very few and far between in numbers.
Most of the cinema halls of the city have been shut or demolished for constructing shopping malls or commercial complexes on their plots. One of the prominent movie halls, 'Lion Cinema' was demolished several years ago for building a market on its plot.
Moreover, many playgrounds, fields and open spaces have been either encroached upon or grabbed, or illegally occupied by land grabbers for constructing high rise apartment buildings, offices or super markets.
Sources said, there were a total of 18 cinema halls and of that, eight halls have already been closed down. These movie halls have been turned into apartment buildings or commercial complexes. The closed halls are: Jalsa, Nupur, Melody, Khurshid Mahal, Ujala, Upahar and Rangam Cinema.
Employees of those halls and locals alleged that the owners of the halls have either sold the lands for building commercial complexes there or constructing highrise building by themselves only to make money.
"If they sell the land to a real estate company or developer they are sure to get a huge amount of money," said an official of a now-demolished prominent cinema hall. A former official of another demolished hall said, the owners of the cinema hall would get more cash than they had earned through running a movie theatre.
"If the landlords sell the spaces or shops to buyers they will get a large amount in cash. So, most of them here are demolishing the cinema halls for building new highrise buildings or markets," ex-employees of those halls told the FE.
A section of owners and employees of the cinema halls said many movie halls would have incurred a huge loss due to ivnvasion of Internet, satellite television or cable TV. "So we decided to close down the halls," They also said that other reasons behind shutting down the halls were the burden of lavies imposed upon them by the government. "Taxes including excise duty at 125 per cent, and excess rental demanded by the distributors of the movies have forced us to take the decision," some owners alleged.
Sources said, most of the movie-goers are from the low-income groups or poor segment of the society. "So it is very difficult for them to enjoy a cinema buying tickets at a very high price. As a result, the number of the cine-goers has declined alarmingly in the last several years," they added.
It may be mentioned that Hindi films are being shown on the satellite and cable TVs unabated. But showing Hindi movie publicly in cinema halls is prohibited in the country. The affluent segment of the society is enjoying those films on satellite, cable TV or home cinema at their residences.
Demonstrating living wild animals in cages is another important item of tourist attraction. However, Chattogram lacks existence of a large number of rare, ferocious as well as beautiful animals in its only zoo. The suthority of the zoo has failed to attract visitors due to lack of rare species of animals since its establishment in 1989.
Animal lovers who want to get recreation by visiting zoo become annoyed to see the same animal again and again at the Chattogram zoo.
More than 2000 people, children with their families, visit the zoo every day. The zoo is located beside the Concord Amusement Park in the city's Khulsi area. But visitors, especially the children, prefer the park to the zoo for entertainment.
The zoo began its journey on February 28, 1989, with a pair of monkeys only. At present, the zoo is home to 70 types animals of different species. There are 37 cages housing birds and animals. The area of the zoo is about six acre. Tiger, lion, monkeys, vulture, python, crocodile, samber deer, spotted deer, leopard cat, hod deer, palm civet, stripped hyena, birds like parrots, dhanesh, peacock are the only attractions for the visitors.
Sources said, the spaces in the zoo for animals are too small for their survival. Officials of the zoo said, "We need more than 20 acres of land to properly run a city zoo. If we get that chunk of land, we can keep many rare species for animal-loving visitors."
Locals said, a the zoo is situated adjacent to the amusement park, the guardians of the visiting children lack the financial power to provide their wards with money to buy entry tickets for both, the park and the zoo.
"So the children come here and leave visiting the park only," the stated.
Apart from that, the city lack hi-tech park and cyber cafe with adequate facilities, including highspeed Internet and the latest machines of information and communications technology.
A 30-member-committe, headed by the depity commissioner (DC) of Chattogram, has been formed to looking after the zoo.
It may be mentioned that there are only two children's parks - one at Jamburi field in Agrabad and the other in Circuit House area but the parks also lack adequate speces, modern rides and other facilities with the latest technologies.
Loclas said, as there is no real place for amusement, the city dwellers use the DC Hill area for their entertainment and recreation now.

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