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To the Editor...
. ?n|„ hn rnn^rrHi If thW ft W» address and te.ephone number (if any). The Identity of the writers will be protected. Letters must be limited to 300 words. All letters will be subject to editing.
SMEs
Small & Medium Enterprise (SMEs) sector is the engine of any growing economy like Bangladesh. When the country is suffering from scarcity of investment, entrepreneurs of the SMEs are showing their full enthusiasm to invest more, though they are facing hurdles due to the fact that the commercial banks and non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) charge high interest rate on loans.
In many cases, effective .•interest goes beyond 18 per-■ cent. Private banks and nonbank financial institutions (NBFIs) are charging 15 to 20 percent while state owned commercial banks' rate ranges between 12 to 13 percent. Though Bangladesh Bank facilitates refinancing scheme at 5% rate of interest, banks and non-bank financial institutions are imprudently charging such high rate.
Of course, the supervision cost of SME loans is high but that leaves no excuse for banks since they are giving agricultural loans at a lower rate, which have the similar supervision cost. Because of the jittery mood of the businessmen in the last few years, especially during the caretaker government, the banks are now piled up with idle money amounting about 30,000 crore taka. The banks f can make use of this money facilitating the SME sector, which will grow our export potential next to garments.
The SME foundation is considering setting up an industrial park at Keraniganj for light engineering, plastic and electronic factories. For this, SME foundation has signed an Moll with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), an organ of the UN. In spite of the positive steps taken by various organisations including the government SME, the thrust sector, will not flourish at the favoured speed unless the banks slash the interest rate to •he minimum level.
Md.AbuSufian University of Dhaka
An SOS
Barely were the miseries of the residents surrounding the Gulshan-Banani redressed since my letter on 'Gulshan-Banani Bridge' got published in the Letters to the Editor column of The Daily Star sometime back. As the situation is seemingly turning worse, I am now forced to write on another menace that is currently compounding the miseries of the residents, living around the bridge.
This letter is also meant to be an SOS from the residents who desire and deserve immediate attention from the police chief to help us lead our daily life and activity peacefully.
As the right arm of the bridge passes almost kissing my apartment (Flat B, Building 39. Road 35 A), I am trying to find recourse through your column to the growing problems, caused by the teenage motorcycle riders. The painfully irksome problem that my family and the nearby residents are confronted with needs immediate redress from the law-enforcement authorities.
A large number of young motorcycle riders, numbering about 20-25 throng the section of the Gulshan-Banani bridge, right under my flat, soon after the sundown and begin racing and demonstrating several riding tricks provoking shouts and shrills from the stationary and gathering bystanders. The cacophony at some point reaches a crescendo. To add to the woes come the cars, with howlers fixed as exhaust and disco music blaring from their car-stereos, which turns life of my family and the lives of the residents of the surrounding area into 'virtual hell'. Besides, they choke the one-way arm of the bridge forcing the rushing traffic to resort to wholesale honking which is multiplying the woes of the peace-loving senior citizens like us.
In addition, the bridge also turns into a rendezvous for floating prostitutes', drug peddlers and polythene snuffers, criminalizing the entire environs, and it transforms into a parking lot for many motorcycles, cars,
rickshaws and vendors, seriously augmenting the existing sufferings of the dwellers and impeding the traffic flow.
The residents of the area strongly feel that a strong police vigil from 7:00pm to 11:00pm, the prime time for the mischief-mongers, can only stop the notoriety perpetrated by the troublemakers. Haroonuzzaman
A victim who is a university teacher
Free access to cantonment
The front-page (why front page?) news report published in all the English dailies I came across on September 24 seemed pointless! After all restriction to access, particularly to political leaders is not wise for security. Earlier, the same leader of the "Boro Natokio Party" avoided going to the court of law, using the "Natokio" excuse of lack of security!
Now she welcomes all and sundry to her official!?) party residence in the cantonment! Where has the "Natok" of security gone? Has it all “Gone With TheWind?"
Cantonment security should be impersonal, with access based on justified reasons. Had the leader been ill or admitted to the CMH for genuine medical reasons, then it could be a different matter.
Keen natok watcher
Dhaka
Helmet discrimination!
Driving vehicles has got certain norms: using helmet, fastening seat belt etc, to be maintained by the drivers and the person sitting right beside him/her, we all know. However, it is observed, very frequently indeed, that fastening seat belt and wearing helmets is a rare practice on our roads across the cities.
Such a common in our case but interesting incident slipped into my notice the other day: a middle-aged couple on motorbike. What was interesting was that the driving man was wearing a helmet, while the woman next
to him had nothing of the kind on her head! According to the law she had to wear a helmet too!
It was a kind of gender discrimination! Amid all such and many other odds, we need to respect the existing laws.
Rafiqul Islam Rime Agrabad, Chittagong
English writers
From the Star Magazine, I came to know that Shazia Omar's novel has been published in India. It is really good news and great inspiration for all English writers of this country.
In our country, the publishers are not at all interested to publish any English novel. It must be noted that Bengali is our mother language. We are the only nation of this world who fought for the mother language. Thus Bengali should always remain our priority. But to keep pace with the modem world, we also should practise English.
Pradip Das
Dhaka
Traffic jam persists Dhaka city and traffic jam have become synonymous. Bored and exhausted commuters of Dhaka city want prompt initiatives from the govt to get rid of nagging
traffic jam. The more we wait to adopt a plan, the worse the problem will become. In order to free Dhaka city from traffic disturbance, the government has to take some short and long term planning and the planning must be made after inviting suggestions from political parties and civil societies. We have seen that every political government took many Initiatives regarding Dhaka city traffic gridlock and a huge amount of money was poured in, but no improvement has taken place. The caretaker govt also took some steps such as knocking down illegal structures besides the roads but these are again occupied by the encroachers. It is clear that every political govt took many steps which later proved ineffective.
Md Zonaed Emran
Dept, of Political Science Un i versity of Dhaka
Healthcare in the US
In his documentary, Sicko, Micheal Moore, shows us the shabby state of US healthcare. The documentary informs us that almost fifty million Americans are uninsured and those who are covered are often victims of insurance company fraud and red tape. It is indeed a very comprehensive documentary that reveals the machinations that the insurance companies resort to, to avoid meeting the cost of medically necessary treatments for policy holders, and thus increase company profitability. Moore goes a step further in showing how healthcare in some other countries, France, UK, Canada and even Cuba, is far better than US. He takes a group of people (who worked as volunteers for rescue work ofthevictimsof9/ll) toCuba to provide them healthcare as ironically and unfortunately they were denied government funds to meet their medical treatments.
Right now, Obama is being called a "Socialist” for trying to ensure healthcare for all. And this propaganda against him is being carried out by the Republicans and a segment of the conservative crowd. One piece of advice to them: They must watch Michael Moore's documentary to see, what I believe they already know, the dilapidated state that is America's healthcare.
WasifWahed On e-mail
Diplomatsand traffic
Shabbir A Bashar, PhD has taken Mr Mahboob Elahi, of Ottawa, Canada and myself to task for criticizing him on his so-called "unwarranted" accusation that foreign diplomats and international NGOs stationed in Dhaka possess the majority of Gas Guzzling Monstrosities (GGMs), drive them at our expense and cause most of the gridlock on Dhaka's streets by flaunting our traffic laws.
Mr Bashar bemoans that relevant parts of his letter were edited out, but does he not understand that it is the prerogative of the Letters Editor, who may sometimes have cold feet as well as having to excise long letters?
But why should he misquote my own printed lines in his rebuttal? What I had written was ("Good Heavens what could have prompted Mr Bashar to make such a statement that) most of the stretched out, 4-5 lakh gas guzzling monstrosities that have flooded and blocked
Dhaka's narrow pot-holed streets and lanes, belong to the diplomatic community and that the Bangladeshi taxpayer pays for the fuel." Mr Bashar, however, dropped the first part within brackets and quoted the rest, thereby giving exactly the opposite meaning to my assertions.
Secondly, my letter clearly refers to Bangladeshi girls working in diplomatic, international or corporate institutions who mostly travel by GGMs compared to the many foreign female staff who can be seen walking or bicycling to work. But in his letter, Mr Bashar dragged in the female employees of the RMG sector, who are mere chattels of the garment owners, a major source of GGMs, purchased at the cost pf th^ exploited labour of over two million women workers, who far from even affording a rickshaw, are sometimes made to walk barefoot!!.
Sorry to say, but Mr Bashar seems to know little about the present reality of Bangladesh. Is he not aware that diplomatic personnel's protection is our responsibility as they have now become the favourite targets for muggers, robbers etc.
However, Eid Mubarak to him and thanks for letting us know there is a Vancouver in the USA also.
SikanderAhmed
Niketon, Gulshan-1, Dhaka
Political sharks!
Beware of man-eaters in the Sundarbans. Also, beware of political sharks in the capital Dhaka.
The political parties and the MPs never talk about the man-eaters lurking in the big cities and in the urban and rural areas. Take one example, the privatisation schemes of the government on the ailing public sector factories, we are witnessing for several decades.
Adamjee Jute Mills (world's largest) disappeared so efficiently. Jute our number one export, simply disappeared from the screen. Now we read our newspapers printed on imported newsprint. Why the English-medium schools are so popular (and costly); and what percentage of BD families patronise it, outside the big cities? What is this Coaching and Tutorial cul-
ture? Why the teachers are so busy from morning till night, and the quality of the examinees never rise?
Why the Mawa-Ganga bridge has become a question of life and death for a particular political parties, and must be completed within the current regime? Impossible.
Blame the voters, or the voting mechanism, the rules, or the motives?
Today we seem to have more man-eaters in Dhaka City than in the Sunderbans! Remedy: suck the milk of human kindness? Our adolescent politicians need vitamin perks and other fortifying treatment for reorientation towards the people, and erase attention on the self. Are we so thirsty that we dry up the deltaic river waters; and:seek more water from the dammed rivers in India? One has to be cunning in political propaganda, keeping both ends intact.
AZ
On e-mail
Play it safe
No question of Muslim League, Awami League, BNP, Jatiya Party, Jamaat-e-lslami or any other political party. No matter whether it is an elected govt, military govt, or caretaker government, there is no alternative to democracy.
Why don’t we have or had sincere and able leaders, govt servants and opposition leaders to look after and govern our country efficiently and smoothly?
Why did we commit and do commit mistakes again and again, earn bad reputation and suffer?
Why don't we consider the bad and good sides of a matter beforehand?
We should be neither optimistic nor pessimistic? We should neither suffer from superiority complex nor inferiority complex.
We should always be on the safe side. We should always think thrice before we act or make any decision. Slow but steady wins the race and is appreciated.
A stitch in time saves nine. All is well that ends well.
This will ensure peace and progress of our people and the country.
OH Kabir
Dhaka
Skidding cars
If you have planned to visit your friends or relations residing on Road # 28 (old) at Dhanmondi between 5:00 and 8:00pm, you are advised to reschedule it. This is the time when the children of the so-called affluent families (as often described by the media) come to this part of the city for skidding their cars. They skid their cars at least at two points of the 'S'-shaped road which ends up at the Dhanmondi lake near the Westerlies.
The worst possible skidding is done in front of the Nazrul Institute when their skidding cars produce deafening noise causing anger, fear the disturbance amongst the inhabitant-^ ^cqppn-tion severe traumatic effects on the minds of the small children and the elderly people. Sometimes the perpetrators come together aboard a number of cars yelling, and blowing the horns, which throws the people here into a deep frenzy.
To make the situation worse, a dozen of motorbikers join them in the extravaganza. Such risky games of the insensible young boys (with a few female partners) have actually made the entire population panic-stricken. Even the small children who used to play some games in the vicinity of their buildings prefer to remain indoors, fearing dangers.
As this is allowed to go unchallenged by the lawenforcing agencies, the frequency of skidding is increasing by the day. A good number of accidents have already occurred causing serious injuries to people and the motorists themselves.
They have chosen this place because there is no resistance from the local residents who are too docile to dare raise their voice against the ultra-modern youths. The law-enforcing agencies must take immediate action against the heartless alien youths who invade the area. But, according to the locals, the best way to stop this nuisance is the construe^ tion of two speed breakers or at least some rumble strips' at suitable points of tlie road. IftekherAlam
Dhanmondi, Dhaka