Govt urged to allocate special budget for char development

Human rights activists and top officials from local and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have urged the government to allocate special budget for char development.

They have also urged the government to increase the budget allocation for the char people under three sectors--education, social safety net and health.

They made the call while speaking at a discussion titled “Development and Potential of the Chars: In the Context of National Budget” organised jointly by Rural Development Academy (RDA), Bogura, Swiss Contact Bangladesh and National Char Alliance (NCA) on Tuesday.

While presenting the keynote paper, Executive Chairman of Unnayan Shamannay Dr Atiur Rahman said that there is a little allocation in the national budget for the betterment of the char people, but no special budget was allocated for char development in the last budget.

According to a paper provided by M4C (Making Markets Work for the Jamuna, Padma and Teesta Chars), a project of Swiss Contact Bangladesh, the government gave specific allocation for char development in three fiscal years during the last ten years.

The left-behind people of the society got the highest allocation (Tk 200 crore) in 2018 after char was identified as the one of the six priority areas for special allocation. Besides, the development approach got Tk 50 crore in FY15 and FY16.

Project Director of M4C Abdul Majid, also a top official of RDA, said that drought is the biggest enemy for the habitants in char areas.

“If there are flood for two months, the people here have to face drought for ten months. So, the projects targeting to minimise drought impact would have been more impactful,” he added.

“Agriculture is the main source of income for the char people and to increase their earnings, we have provided them with some locally-invented or adopted technologies,” he said.

Abdul Awal, team leader of the project from Swiss Contact, urged the government to formulate a policy on char development (char policy) for sustainable development of the communities.