Gram Sarkar abolished
Courtesy New Age 21/4/08
The military-run administration has scrapped the controversial Gram Sarkar, an unelected rural administrative system re-introduced by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance government nearly five years ago.
The council of advisers to the interim government at its weekly meeting on Sunday, with chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed in the chair, approved the Gram Sarkar (Annulment) Ordinance 2008 to abolish the system that came into being through a bill passed in parliament in 2003, according to an official hand-out.
The government said the annulment was in line with a High Court bench’s verdict that declared the 2003 Act to be illegal, and the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court upheld the verdict after the then authorities challenged the High Court’s judgement.
‘The ordinance seeking annulment of the earlier legislation was prepared in line with the judgement. The council of advisers gave its final approval today [Sunday],’ said the official statement.
In imitation of late President Ziaur Rahman’s mass mobilisation for rural development in 1980, the BNP-led alliance government re-introduced the Gram Sarkar system. The coalition government intended to form 40,392 unelected bodies which neither serve as part of the administration nor of the local government. There have been allegations of politicisation of the members of the Gram Sarkars.
Earlier, a committee formed to strengthen the local government bodies recommended abolition of the Gram Sarkar Act. The food and health adviser, AMM Shawkat Ali, headed the committee.
The meeting, attended by most of the advisers and the chief adviser’s special assistants, also approved a proposal for the formation of a university by coordinating the educational and training institutions of the armed forces.
The president will be the chancellor of the university which will be set up under the Bangladesh University of Professionals Ordinance 2008. A serving or retired official with the rank of Major General will be appointed vice-chancellor of the proposed university which will be set up at Mirpur Cantonment.
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