Kamal for master plan to protect haor, its people

Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said a master plan with the help of the locally and internationally experienced people will be formulated to protect the haor area from floods and improve the standard of life.

"It will not be possible to protect haor even by building an embankment like Himalaya. Formulation of a master plan with the help of local and foreign experts specially those are working on haor can help solve the problem," said Kamal while speaking at a programme at NEC Conference room here today.

The programme was organized to unveil the covers of three research publications-1) Data Gap Analysis for Sustainable Development (SDGs): Bangladesh Perspective, 2) Banking Atlas, and 3) Workshop Outcome Document on Environmental and Climate Change Policy Gap Analysis in Haor Areas.

Prof Dr Wahiduddin Mahmud and UNDP's country director Sudipto Mukherjee attended it as special guest. Director general of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) AKS Murshid, director general of Bangladesh Dr Tawfique Ahmed Chowdhury spoke on the occasion.

Member (senior secretary) of General Economic Division Dr Shamsul Alam presented the main outcomes of the research publication.

The planning minister said climate change is mainly responsible for the recent flood in haor area. Impacts of climate change are mainly responsible for snowfall in London in April and rains in some parts of India, Iran and other regions, he added.

Dr Wahiduddin Mahmud said a comprehensive plan is not there for the development of haor area. A comprehensive plan with involvement of all ministries concerned is needed for the development of the haor area, he added.

In his presentation Dr Shamsul Alam said the activities to achieve 169 targets of 17 SDGs are monitored. He said data on 70 indices are available in Bangladesh and there is partial data on the 108 indices, he said, adding that 230 indices are required to monitor implementation activities of 169 targets of 17 SDGs.

He said the government has taken massive preparations to ensure successful implementation of SDGs and through evaluating the data the government has been able to know what types of data it has and which ones are required.

Source: bss