Experts Invited to attend a parliamentary standing committee meeting on Tuesday were asked to leave the meeting amidst chaos soon after it began. participants alleged.
Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture Dr TIM Fazle Rabbi invited four experts including a member of the Agriculture Commission for discussion on higher education in agriculture. But within 10 minutes of commencement of the meeting, three experts were told that their presence was no more required as the agenda was dropped abruptly. Another expert was not present because of illness.
This followed an objection from the agriculture minister about the presence of one of the experts, who had lodged case against this ministry in the past, sources concerned said.
The minister. Motia Chowdhury. however told The Dally Star that the agenda was not dropped, rather it was deferred and a meeting of the same committee is due on October 24. She declined to comment on alleged chaos in the meeting.
The meeting was convened amidst growing protest against conversion of agriculture colleges into science and technology universities.
The experts later said that dropping of a set agenda was something unprecedented' in case of parliamentary committee meetings. They are former DO of Bangladesh Jute Research Institute Dr Mosharraf Hossain. member of the Agriculture Commission Dr Shahidul Islam and former director of Bangladesh Sugarcane Resear Institute Md Yasin All.
Two BNP lawmakers present
at the committee meeting had also vainly insisted on not dropping the agenda on such an important issue like agricultural education.
But the committee chairman later told this correspondent later that the situation went out of hand and he had to drop agricultural education from the day's agenda. There were discussions on other issues instead, he added.
Mentlonably, out of three agricultural colleges in the country, the government has already converted the one in Dinajpur into a science and technology university and the process is on for conversion another at Patuakhali.