Wooden chairs replacing revolving ones

Wooden chairs have now started replacing the luxurious revolving and foamed ones in various offices and business establishments as use of such modern flexible chairs is learnt to have caused various health hazards including back pains. It has been found that the top officials and even the juniors in the secretariat, the Bangladesh Bank, the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC), Investment Corporation of Bangladesh (ICB), National Board of Revenue (NBR) and other private organisations now use wooden chairs following doctors' prescription.
The state-owned and commercial organisations are providing wooden chairs, some of which are also revolving in accordance with hierarchy of the bosses, following the demand of their offices. As a result, wooden chair is getting back its popularity boosting the business of the manufacturers.
In many offices the majority number of top officials use the wooden chairs prescribed by their doctors. According to a source of the secretariat, around 60 per cent top officials there use the wooden chairs.  Presently, out of four commissioners, three use the wooden chairs in the BSEC. In the BSEC, out of seven executive directors, five use the wooden chairs replacing their previous revolving ones.
Similar scenario has been observed in the state-owned ICB. In the ICB, a good number of top officials, including the chief executive officers (CEOs) of various subsidiaries, use the wooden chairs.
While talking to the FE, the officials at the BSEC and ICB said that not only the top officials but also some young officials also use the wooden chairs.
"I use the wooden chair instead of the revolving one because of back pain. I feel comfort to sit in the wooden chair," BSEC Commissioner Arif Khan told the FE.
BSEC Executive Director Ms Ruksana Chowdhury said she uses the wooden chair since 2005 following the prescription of her doctor.
PS to the NBR Chairman Md Kamruzzaman said in the secretariat the top officials use the wooden chairs as the backbone-friendly revolving chairs are highly expensive compared to wooden ones.
"I have found that at the secretariat around 60 per cent top officials use the wooden chairs. The backbone-friendly revolving chairs cost about Tk 0.2 million whereas a wooden one can be prepared at a reasonable cost to get a better support for the backbone," said Mr Kamruzzaman.
Kamrun Naher, a DGM at administration of the ICB, said she often receives requisition of purchasing the wooden chairs for the officials.
Abdul Kader Khan, who manufactures wooden chairs in the south Matuail of the capital, has supplied more than 40 chairs in the BSEC and 150 in the ICB. "The price of revolving wooden chairs varies in accordance with the quality of wood. Normally, the manufacturing cost of a chair stands at above seven thousand taka," Kader said.
When asked, Doctor Monirul Islam, an assistant professor at the NITOR, said the wooden chair is better than the foamed ones for the sake of the curvature of the backbone.
"The normal curvature of the backbone can be hampered if it dives into the foam of the chair along with the movement of the revolving chair. That's why the base of the back's support should be non-sagging and its upper part should be firm, which is not absolutely hard, to reduce pressure on tissues of backbone," Mr Islam told the FE. He said the backbone will be curved if there is a gap in the supportive matter set in the chair. "The doctors often prescribe the wooden chair as these give better support for the backbone," Islam added.