Govt plans to rename ZIA PM requested to rename structures named after Zia The government is going to change the name of the country's biggest airport, now called the Zia International Airport, and rename it after the great saint, Hazrat Shahjalal (RA), said highly placed sources in the government. The Cabinet at its weekly meeting on Monday decided, in principle, to go along with the proposal of Awami League's general secretary and LGRD and cooperatives minister, Syed Ashraful Islam, who suggested the renaming of the capital's aerodrome, a minister told New Age. Named after Bangladesh's former president and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party's founder, Ziaur Rahman, the airport began operating in 1981. ZIA is the nation's largest airport with a total area of 1,300 acres. More than 16 international airlines use this airport which handles half a million passengers and 98,000 million tonnes cargo annually, according to official records. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who presided over the meeting of the Cabinet, was requested to change the names of the structures which were named after Ziaur Rahman during the tenures of the BNP-led governments, said the minister. Ashraf proposed the changing of the name of ZIA, and then the PM asked all present to propose the new name, and the name of Hazrat Shahjalal (RA) was approved, said insiders who were at the meeting. Referring to BNP's secretary-general Khandaker Delwar Hossain, Hasina, also the ruling Awami League's president, said that the BNP has spent cores of taka for holding its council session but has appointed the same man as the secretary-general, said the minister. Referring to the BNP's newly constituted national standing committee, she said that Khaleda had appointed terrorists and corrupt persons to the BNP's highest policy-making body, said sources. The Cabinet also decided to recruit 2,627 diploma nurses on an emergency basis and to upgrade their status from Class III to Class II.The PM's press secretary, Abul Kalam Azad, told newsmen that currently 9,000 nurses, who passed the 4-year diploma course, are unemployed. The present doctor-nurse ratio is 2:1 but standard ratio throughout the world is 1:3. Hasina stressed the need for improving the professional quality as well as social status of the nurses.She asked the concerned ministry to formulate a new policy for recruitment of the nurses and said the government would encourage the private enterprises to set up training centres for nurses to improve the standard of nursing so that the country can send skilled nurses to work abroad, said the minister. The Cabinet also endorsed a proposal to set up Barisal Science and Technology University in response to Barisal City Corporation mayor's request, and to this end it approved the Barisal University (Amendment) Bill 2009 and also approved, in principle, the Barisal Science and Technology (Amendment) Act.
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