Noted academician Prof Abdullah Abu Sayeed yesterday urged all, especially the young generation, to launch a social movement to protect the rights of the country's senior citizens (elderly people).

A mass campaign should be launched to create awareness so that each family takes proper care of its elderly members and brings an end to the deprivation and negligence faced by the elderly, he stressed.

Prof Sayeed was presiding over a discussion titled “Social problems of senior citizens and the way to resolve", jointly organised by Subarta Trust and Ethics Club Bangladesh in the city's Jatiya Press Club.

Criticising the government's “dawdling" role in providing better services and facilities to senior citizens, he said civil society members should raise their voice to press the government for initiating effective measures in this regard.

Talking about the dilapidated condition of the country's roads, he said the govern-

ment appointed a self-declared corrupt official as the chief engineer in the Roads and Highways Department. "How can the situation of roads improve?" he questioned.

About traffic congestion, he said this would be minimised by 50 percent after 12 years. But he did not mention how this would be achieved.

Presenting a keynote paper, the trust General Secretary Shelina Akhter informed that over 1.5 crore elderly people live in the country and placed a 16-point recommendation for their betterment.

The recommendations include — issuing senior citizen identity cards to those aged 60 years and above, introducing geriatric units in all government hospitals and training nurses in this regard, modernising residential homes for the elderly and reserving 10 percent quota in all housing projects for them.

The ethics club President ME Chowdhury Shamim moderated the discussion, where lawmaker Gazi Golam Dastagir also spoke.