It is in the middle of nowhere. Located in the forested hills on the remote south-western edge of Bandarban district in Chittagong division, Thanchi upazila is 90 km from the district headquarters. The journey involves traveling on dirt roads, partly herringboned, and crossing hills and streams, as well as a bridge spanning the fast-flowing Sangu river. It can be reached by travelling on buses, ‘chander gari’ (old army jeeps) and motorcycles. Little wonder, then, no administrative official wishes to stay at this station. And the people have to do without government facilities.
Thanchi is bounded by Ruma to the north, Myanmar to the south, Belaichhari of Rangamati and the Myanmar border to the east, and Alikadam and Lama to the west. The only authorities here are the police at the local police station, the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) personnel manning the remote frontier outposts along the border with Myanmar, and a few scattered Army camps at this remote outpost.
In the investigation conducted by The Independent, it was revealed that the remotest upazila of Bangladesh does not have any official of the government, including the upazila nirbahi officer (UNO). The UNO is the administrative head but does not stay at the station. The upazila does have a hospital, but the doctors and nurses are present only on paper.
Locals explained that the officials and the employees of different government offices there do not attend office. They come to the offices once or twice a month, sign the attendance registers to legalise their monthly salaries, and go away.
The people of the locality, not surprisingly, are fed up with the administration, as it does not provide minimum government facilities to the people of the upazila.
Deputy commissioner KM Tariqul Islam admitted that the allegations are true. “We are exerting pressure to send officials to their posts. But infrastructural problems, such as the absence of communications like proper roads and bridges over the streams flowing down from the high hills, have made it difficult for us to visit the remote upazila,” the DC said.
This is what the records of the district council of Bandarban state: The total area of the upazila is 2,610 sq. km, total population approximately 25,000, the number of unions four, the number of mouzas 11, a single government hospital, a literacy rate of 17.4 per cent, two markets, and a post office. The main occupations of the people are agriculture and forestry, with some working as day labourers for the forest contractors or poachers, and as farmhands.
Cabinet secretary Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan told The Independent that he cannot say anything about the matter without obtaining further information, but promised to investigate it after learning about it from The Independent.
Several officials, on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that they do not go the work station as it is in a remote area and there is no accommodation, no electricity and no water supply.
One of the officials told The Independent that he goes to his work station only twice a month. His wife is also posted in Thanchi, but they cannot go there regularly. The officials stay in Bandarban district headquarters instead of Thanchi upazila headquarters.
Shaheed Mohammad Saidul Haque joined as the UNO on August 1, but the local people alleged that he does not regularly go to the upazila.
He admitted that it is really difficult to stay there since proper accommodation and support facilities are absent. To make a trip up and down from the Bandarban district headquarters, it takes seven hours at a cost of Tk. 400. If he goes to Thanchi for 10 days a month, it would take cost Tk. 4,000, something he cannot afford. “The situation is difficult because of the dearth of communication facilities and the lack of necessary infrastructure,” the UNO pointed out.
Talking to The Independent, upazila chairman Khamlai Mro echoed the local people’s claims. He added that they have informed the district administration and the chairman of the Bandarban hill district council. “But we are yet to get any positive response from either authority,” Mro said.
A local social worker, Euse Azim, alleged that barring officials of Sonali Bank and Bangladesh Agriculture Bank, no other government official attends office regularly.
Under the Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord, 1997, the government has handed over a total of 21 subjects or departments to the Bandarban hill district council till date. Yet the authorities concerned have not taken any action against the absentee officials yet, Azim alleged. As a result, the people of the remote area are denied government facilities, he added.
-With The Independent input
