& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

TO THE EDITOR
"Avoid godfather politics"
The main opposition party of Bangladesh, Awami League recently published the list of 101 godfathers of the ruling alliance government in a press conference. This included names of ruling ministers, state ministers, members of parliament, city mayors, ward commissioners or their relatives. The ruling BNP has already rejected and declared it the delirium of a mad man. At present a general notion has been set in the minds of the common people that all the political leaders, irrespective of the political affiliation, are directly or indirectly connected with criminal activities. Politics became synonymous to crime. Political leaders are sponsoring terrorism for retaining their power. In this circumstances, the publication of the godfathers' list of a party bear an exceptional importance.
But the intention of the publication of the list is very much questionable. It seems to be a plot only to attack the opponent. The opposition party itself has hundreds of such godfathers and it has done nothing to uproot those godfathers from the party rather it is sponsoring and
using them as tools with a view to seize the power to dethrone the ruling government. When in power, they also sponsored terrorism and godfathers.
So publication of godfathers' list of the opponent party only to create political chaos will not bring any good to the country. In order to get rid of this filthy political terrorism what is most important is to strip all the political parties of terrorism and crime connection. But to what extent are the political parties ready to do their parts? Do they have that little intention?
Md Aminul Islam Razib
Hons 3rd Year
Department of law, DU
Entrepreneur and the environment
The present Government has stressed that the rate of domestic savings in the country is extremely low, and also that a large number of borrowers have not cared to pay the interest and the capital obtained from the banks and the financial institutions. If the defaulters were real entrepreneurs such a situation could not have occurred, on such a large scale. A genuine industrialist
wants to run his factories continuously, and for this he has to come to the banks time and again. He is quite happy to earn a profit of ten or fifteen percent, which keeps him in business, and ensures employment to people and revenues to the government.
A pseudo industrialist does not establish a viable and profit making plant. The initial kickbacks are so great, that he has the urge to siphon almost the whole of the borrowed capital. The collateral that the pseudo industrialist provides, proves to be of little value. An industry with a strong foundation cannot be built up when the whole process has been corrupted and politicised. In trade and industry, the economic factors are all that matter, and these should be allowed to play their part by the government. East Asian or the South East Asian economic giants had one thing in common and a clear imperative, that the economy has to be run in the most efficient way and to do this the government, the labour and the industry had to work together. This regulatory machine in Bangladesh is not geared to expedite industrial output or its establishment, but to create bottlenecks at each stage. The
putting up of an industrial unit, in this country for the real entrepreneurs is a nightmare at its worst.
Even the top industrial countries of the world provide subsidies to the agricultural sector and tariff protection for the industrial goods. Our motto for the nascent industries in Bangladesh should be "nurse the baby, protect the child and free the adult". In other words protection has to be for a limited period, so that the inefficient industries may be weeded out.
The growth and consolidation of the industries need a stable political situation. The very running of the factories is dependent on industrial and social peace. If the safety and security of life and property of the citizens are not ensured, there can hardly be any production, or a productive climate, not to speak of domestic investment and direct foreign investment.
S Mahtab
Dhaka-1212
Decentralisation is the cure
Dhaka metropolis can be saved in only one way: decentralise the administrative powers concentrated
in Dhaka, to curb the constant ad hoc flow of lakhs of people who have to travel to the capital every week on business errands, as the divisional and district authorities have no decision-making powers to solve most of the problems on the spot.
The second priority is to encourage suburban living around the main cities, through attractive investment schemes in the private sector for the middle -and lower-middle class housing schemes (now concentrated on the rich clients).
That leads to the third priority, which is fast, frequent, and cheap mass transportation networks round the clock. The corollary leads to the fourth priority: development of inland water transport around Dhaka and elsewhere.
One-stop services will lessen movement and travel volume and time -- indirectly a critical economic factor in day to day transactions. The counter services offered by the government offices is below par, and need to be upgraded through administrative reforms -- do away with the colonial system of the civil service. Why the secretariat should indulge in field-office work, and not remain confined to policy-making?
The issue of the separation of the judiciary from the civil service is a rope around the neck of each regime for so many decades. It is not difficult to write an essay on "the varieties of excuses."
The politicians have so far failed in their basic objectives of public service. No that they cannot do it, but due to private ambitions and secret schemes for self-gain. This is an open secret, threatening the popularity of political regimes. The message from the general public is: be counted, or get lost.
Another default culture is the hibernation of the opposition leaders for five years -- waiting to come back into power! What's wrong in being in the opposition? Power lies in opposing the misuse of power, and it is good public service. Our myopic political culture is delaying the development of the society, not to speak of specific single projects, macro or micro. These styles of governance create huge accumulative system losses, which are not counted officially by the GoB or private think tanks. It is not enough for one minister out of five dozen to talk rationally. What the PM has to say? She may try drafting her own speeches, after collecting the points
to ponder upon.
Abdad Khan
Dhaka
Power disruption at Maniknagar
When Awami League came to power in 1996, we the people of Maniknagar had to suffer much with the whole country for loadshedding. They used to say that for these sufferings, the previous government was responsible. After that BNP made little development in this sector and even did not renovate the old electric generators of the country. Due to Awami League's priority, this sector gave tremendous service during their last two years and it lasted up-to the last caretaker government.
But alas! when the 2/3rd majority alliance government came to power, electricity again began to laugh like a lover sitting across the river. For last two years of this government electricity began to play like the sun of the autumn season, specially during day time and first half of the nights. I think this is not a lesser achievement of the government than deterioration of law and order situation in the country.
The frequent disappearance of electricity from our area may be for the following reasons besides the normal rationing of power in Dhaka:
1. Existing dilapidated cables cannot carry huge volume of electricity used by large number of users in this thickly populated area.
2. It may be pointed out that one owner here distributes electricity to a number of families (his tenants) through his only one meter.
3. 80% of the houses use single meter and indulge in the above mentioned defalcation and their billed amount does not exceed Tk 500 or 600 only per month. They do it by managing the meter-readers and DESA staff.
These need to be looked into by higher authority to lessen the sufferings of the honest consumers of the area and change the existing old transformers and wires to cater to the present need of the locality. Then we will not be unhappy for normal load-sheddings.
A Gafur
Maniknagar, Dhaka-1203