Staff Correspondent

The food crisis, soaring prices of daily commodities and law and order are expected to top the agenda of a four-day conference of deputy commissioners beginning Saturday, said a senior official with the Cabinet Division Friday.

Many of the issues tied to the professional needs of the district administrators are also expected to come up at the conference, the official said on condition of anonymity.

At the meeting set to be held at the Chief Adviser's Office, the DCs will place a string of burning issues that speak of deep frustration. Chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed is expected to open the conference.

A report, prepared by the district administrators and available with the Cabinet Division, laid out a number of recommendations to deal with the crises the country has long confronting.

The report submitted to the Cabinet Division said that most of the recommendations made at an earlier similar conference had not been implemented.

A pay-rise and introduction of food rationing for government officials is expected to take a good part of the discussion. The report says that maintaining order in districts is often a challenge as there is no representative from the Rapid Action Battalion on the district law and order committee.

It says district magistrates cannot submit reports to the Cabinet Division in time as they do not get case documents as per requirements. The report says the DCs lack funds to provide freedom fighters with emergency treatment when they need it most.

It has pointed out that a qualitative disparity is being created in the primary education system since a woman candidate can compete for a job with only SSC qualifications when a male candidate needs to pass a degree to be a teacher. On the agricultural front, the report has identified various problems such as the absence of a clear policy for selection of genuine farmers for distribution of fertilizer and seeds.

The issue of lack of transparency among the elected representatives has been put in the report while some contentious issues in leasing out village markets would also feature in the meeting.

The report says the birth registration programme is facing trouble because of a lack of adequate funds in the district level while a fund-crunch has become a hurdle to clearing retirement allowances for former Union Parishad secretaries.

The choukidars and dafadars also do not get any retirement benefit, it says. Many vital posts of medical officers are lying vacant in upazila hospitals and district Sadar hospitals, the report says. "The issues related to food procurement under the government drive and building a contingency plan of food stock need special attention," the report says.

In the education sector, the report says that there is a lack of stipend for "poor and ultra-poor" students in metropolitan city areas. The absence of a system for inter-institution transfer of teachers and employees of private, secondary and higher secondary educational institutions is creating trouble.

The number of women teachers is not enough although there is a 30 percent quota for them in the private educational institutions as per government rules.

There is no adequate infrastructure for gas supply to hotels and restaurants in the resort town of Cox's Bazar, the report mentions. The present financial power of the administrators for repair of motor vehicles is not adequate. The vehicles for the DCs and other officials are of old model.

The allocation of fuel for vehicles is also inadequate. There is a discrepancy in providing overseas training for the officials based in the Bangladesh Secretariat and the field level officials.

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