Greater Jashore Development and Division Implementation Council (GJDDIC) on Saturday demanded internationalization of Jashore Airport, construction of a second Padma bridge and upgradation of greater Jashore into a division, according to a press release issued by the council.
The representatives of the council raised the demands at a press conference in Sagar-Runi Auditorium of Dhaka Reporters’ Unity in the capital Saturday.
Presided over by GJDDIC Senior Vice President Kazi Rafiqul Islam, the program was attended among others by Jashore district Joint Convener Harun or Rashid, Treasurer Md Nasir Uddin, Joint General Secretary Md Nurul Islam, former general secretary Hasanuzzaman Bipul, Organising Secretary Masudur Rahman and journalists Madhusudan Mandal, Mursalin Nomani and Advocate Uzzal Hossain.
The press release said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on December 20, 2012 committed to making Jashore into a city corporation and wanted PM’s declaration implemented.
GJDDIC urged the government to declare Jashore a division comprising four districts of greater Jashore, Jashore, Jhenaidah, Magura and Narail as well as Satkhira, Chuadanga, Kushtia and Meherpur districts.
Citing the declaration of Mymensingh and Faridpur districts, the release said Jashore was the first district of British India and also the first district to be free from aggression in the great war of liberation.
However, no such development was noticed in this district. This district is still being neglected many ways since the partition of India in 1947.
However, the press release argued, although Jashore does not lag far behind in terms of administrative infrastructure, but the ancient infrastructures of the British period are still the history and heritage of Jashore.
Furthermore, GJDDIC presented a 19-point argument on why Jashore deserves to be a divisional city.
It highlighted a timeline of educational, religious, public and private institutions established in Jashore from early as 1838.
It also argued that Jashore is one of the top 5 revenue-earning districts in Bangladesh which is the first in Khulna division.
Jashore already has all the preconditions to be elevated as a division, including a railway junction, an airport, a seaport, a board of secondary and higher education, two customs commissioner's offices, a central prison, a juvenile development center, an army garrison, an airbase, the BGB's southwestern regional headquarters, medical college, BSCIC industrial city, Jashore University of Science and Technology, it said.
GJDDIC also said an international airport is needed for greater Faridpur, greater Kushtia, Barishal and Khulna divisions of the southwestern part of the country.
People in the region have to depend on this airport to fly to Dhaka and to export loads of locally produced goods using Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka using the crowded Doulatdia-Paturia Ferry Terminal.
Stating that Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in his unfinished autobiography mentions the separate identity of Jashore, the release urged Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to consider their demand.
