Mujib Borsho housing programme needs full implementaion

The liberation war was aimed at creating a Bangladesh that would ensure all basic needs for its people. Shelter comes next to the first two needs - food and clothing. People in Bangladesh no longer starve as poverty has reduced in the past five decades. However there are a lot of homeless people in the country who have no roofs over their heads. It is laudable that the prime minister has taken an initiative to provide them with land and house.

The PM on Saturday inaugurated the Ashrayan-2 project through a video conference. In the first phase, 66,189 families received houses and land. More 3,715 families have been rehabilitated in 715 barracks. Around 70,000 families have been brought under the initative. All of them were homeless and landless.

We believe the project to rehabilitate homeless people on the occasion of Mujib Borsho, the birth centenary of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, is the most humanitarian of all the projects undertaken so far. We wish all success to the project that has been implemented to fulfill Bangbandhu’s dream.

This is not a trivial issue as there are a huge number of homeless and landless among 170 million people in the country. Two lists have been made to determine the total number of homeless people in the country. One list shows, 293,361 people have no homestead or shelters. There are 592,261 people with a little land but no shelter. In first phase the government will provide houses and lands for the first group. The latter group will be brought under the initiative in the following phase. The PM during the inauguration said, the government would arrange houses for every single homeless citizen of the country.

As per the Prothom Alo report, the houses for almost 70,000 families have been built in a very short period of time. We hope the authorities would arrange shelters for remaining homeless population fast. People’s health and work ability depends on safe accommodation. We believe the families who have been provided with accommodation will be more productive in their labour and that will have a positive impact on the country’s overall economy. We expect a swift and comprehensive implementation of the initiative.