I just wonder how much it is justifiable and feasible to implement a project for machine-readable passports, visa and identity card in the country. Which would cost Tk. 1,561 crore and even the money is not allocated in the current budget! Is it really necessary to have machine-readable passports for a developing country like Bangladesh where poverty vastly dominates people's lives? How many countries in the world have such facilities? Such a project is really unjustified and unnecessary when we urgently need to modernise our police department to ensure public security and I can bet there are many other projects that need to be initiated for the benefit of citizens in the country. Wouldn't it be more useful if we use the money to modernise our public security department? For example, connect the whole country's security under computer network. This would be helpful to combat crimes. Modernised equipment, vehicles and communication facilities could be provided to the police department. On the other hand, my other thought is about the demand of the primary school teachers. They are constantly demanding higher salary but still our government is not committed to their demands. Wouldn't it be more justified to distribute Tk. 1,561 crore to these teachers who are the backbone of our education? We can also consider the demands of the garment workers. The incremental price of daily necessities is also posing a threat to our survival. So far I can observe, not a single citizen starved or participated in a procession demanding machine-readable passports or for identity cards, nor was there any public survey to justify the feasibility of the project.
I don't know where our obstacles lie on the way of development; I can only hear the public outcry.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.