Deputy commissioners at their annual conference in Dhaka on Wednesday said that field-level administrations could not function properly mainly because of ‘non-cooperation’ of local representatives in many areas.
On the second day of the three-day conference at the secretariat, they alleged that the conflicting relations between the upazila nirbahi officers and upazila chairmen in many areas had hampered development activities, officials said.
The government, on the other hand, asked the heads of district administration, responsible for keeping law and order, to enforce drastic measures to rein in soaring goods prices before Ramadan and to strengthen market monitoring in their jurisdiction, a number of deputy commissioners said.
The deputy commissioners were asked to hold meetings with all stakeholders for effective steps to arrest price spiral, a senior official told New Age.
All the 64 deputy commissioners and the seven divisional commissioners are attending the conference, divided into 20 working sessions with 38 ministries.
The conference, which the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, inaugurated on Tuesday, will end today.
On the first day, the deputy commissioners reportedly told the prime minister that the responsibilities of elected representatives, including lawmakers, should be defined more clearly so that
there could be no conflicting situation that might affect development works.
In the session with the prime minister’s adviser on administrative affairs HT Imam, the deputy commissioners said that the government should introduce awards in recognition of the outstanding performance of administration cadre officials as given to police and military officers to encourage civil servants, officials said.
In the working session on the LGRD and cooperatives ministry, the district administrators pointed out that there was a conflicting relation between upazila chairmen and upazila nirbahi officer in many areas, which slowed down development activities, according to officials.
Addressing the session as chief guest, the state minister for LGRD and cooperatives, Jahangir Kabir Nanak, however, asked the deputy commissioners, who are also responsible for supervising development activities, to ensure that government officials work with the local representatives in a mutual understanding and cooperation.
‘The responsibilities of field-level officials and local representatives are clearly defined. We have asked the deputy commissioners to ensure cooperation among different authorities in performing their responsibilities to speed up development work,’ Jahangir Kabir told reporters.
He also asked the deputy commissioners to look after the maintenance and repair of roads at local levels.
The local government division secretary, Abu Alam Md Shaheed Khan, told the deputy commissioners that there should not be any conflicting relations between officials and local representatives, including lawmakers.
The state minister also directed the district administrators to asses the losses from the recent flooding in some areas.
In another session, the commerce minister, GM Quader, asked the deputy commissioners to take stringent measures against the people marking up goods for profits before Ramadan.
‘The deputy commissioners have been asked to take stringent measures if anyone tries to make excess profits by increasing goods prices,’ Quader told reporters after the meeting.
The minister instructed the deputy commissioners to run more mobile courts against adulteration of food items during Ramadan.
‘We have also suggested steps to strengthening local government bodies such as union councils,’ Dhaka’s deputy commissioner Md Mohibul Haque told New Age.
He recommended that the salary of village sentinels should be increased and some more employees should be appointed at union councils to make local bodies more functional through the use of information technology at the grass roots.
Another deputy commissioner said that they had taken up the issue of manpower shortage in different departments, including land, which was seriously affecting the service delivery to the public.
After the session on land issues, the land minister, Rezaul Karim Hira, said that online land registration system would come into effect this month across the country as necessary measures to this effect were taken earlier.
Talking with New Age, a number of deputy commissioners expressed their frustration as the problems taken up by them in writing for discussions with the ministers concerned were hardly discussed in the working sessions.
In most cases, they had to listen to what the ministers said, a deputy commissioner said.