Plan to check birth boom

The government has taken up a nine-point plan to check population boom in the country. Health and family welfare minister AFM Ruhal Haque informed the Jatiya Sangsad yesterday.
The minister was replying to a scripted question of Awami League legislator Sukumar Ranjan Ghosh from the Munshiganj-2 constituency during the question-answer hour of the Jatiya Sangsad.
Yesterday’s sitting of the Jatiya Sangsad began after the Asr prayer recess with Speaker Advocate Abdul Hamid in the chair. However, the speaker placed the questions and answers on the table and cancelled the call attention notices of public importance for the day as there was a meeting of the business advisory committee.
 In response to a question of Awami League lawmaker AKM Rahamatullah from the Dhaka-10 constituency, the health minister said the government had a plan to transform big hospitals into autonomous organisations in phases in future.
Replying to a question of Muhammad Emaz Uddin Pramanik, the minister said that the government had been working relentlessly to reach the health-care facilities to the doorsteps of the people. For this purpose the 31-bed upazila health complexes round the country would be transformed into 50-bed hospital complexes in phases. Besides, a union health and family welfare centre would be set up in each of the union.
Dr Haque also informed that the government had initiated a plan to construct a total of 13,500 community clinics — one clinic for every 6,000 people across the country. Earlier, he added that out of 10,723 clinics constructed across the country, operation of 9,525 had already started. Besides, construction of a total of 2,777 community clinics and some 99 damaged community clinics would be completed in the financial year 2010-2012.
Replying to a question of Jatiya Party legislator Hafiz Uddin Ahmed, the minister informed the House that over the one-year-period of the present government, some 85 ambulances and some 28 x-ray machines were delivered.
In response to a question of KH Rashiduzzaman from the Kushtia-3 constituency, Dr Haque said that there were a total of 713 government hospitals in the country comprising 15 national-level hospitals, 56 division-level hospitals, 221 district-level hospitals and 421 upazila-level ones.
Shipping minister Shahjahan Khan informed the House that there were 80 ship breaking units in the country. The industry was located on a stretch of 10-kilometre coastline at Sitakunda upazila in Chittagong.
Replying to a question of Awami League lawmaker Md Israfil Alam from the Naogaon-6 constituency, the minister said the ship-breaking industry was run under the Bangladesh Labour Law of 2006 and the Bangladesh Environment Preservation Laws of 1997.
In response to a question of Awami League lawmaker Waresat Hossain Belal from the Netrokona-5 constituency, the shipping minister informed the House that the steamers being operated by BIWTC (Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Corporation) had been suffering losses from the fiscal year 2000-2001 and the trend continued till 2007-2008. He added that the accumulated losses of BIWTC over the years was Tk 115,96,72,000.

Courtesy of The Independent