The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

The government and business community yesterday called upon all the volunteers to work in a co-ordinated manner in distributing relief goods in the cyclone-hit areas for better benefit to the destitute.

The government held a meeting with representatives from different business bodies and prominent businessmen of the country, from where the call was made.

The meeting tried to identify loopholes in the relief activities as well as to get an estimate on how much the business community could spend in this regard. The business leaders also assured to donate about Tk 20-25 crore relief materials at the meeting.

Finance Adviser Dr Mirza Azizul Islam, Food and Disaster Management Adviser Tapan Chowdhury, Principal Staff Officer (PSO) of Army Lt Gen Masud Uddin Chowdhury and FBCCI president Mir Nasir Hossain participated in the meeting.

Some businessmen, with their personal experience of relief operation, pointed out that relief materials were being distributed haphazardly for lack of coordination.

The Government side also stressed the same point, as people from various quarters were taking part in relief distribution without informing the local administration.

"Cyclone victims in some areas have got large quantity of relief and sold out the excess materials. On the other hand, the relief materials hardly reached some other areas," Lt Gen Masud Uddin Chowdhury told journalists following the meeting.

Gen Masud also admitted that lack of coordination even existed in some cases within the government. The relief goods are not going through one channel and these are hard to dispatch to some remote places, causing lack of coordination.

Replying to a question, he said the Government had a meeting with the foreign envoys and development partners in Bangladesh and requested them to channel their relief through the administration for better coordination.

Quoting a preliminary estimation of the Government, he said that the total damage by the cyclone would be as high as US$ 2.31 billion, including rural infrastructure, schools, crops and livestock.

Addressing the meeting, Finance Adviser Dr M A Aziz said the rural infrastructure would be developed again and new shelters also developed under short and medium term plans.

"It will cause budgetary pressure, but will be managed from three sources," he said.

He added that the additional expenditure would be met from foreign assistance, block allocation in the budget and, if necessary, by cutting ADP (Annual Development Programme) expenditure.

Inquired by the businessmen if the relief expenditures would be tax-exempt, the Finance Adviser explained that the amount to be contributed to the Chief Adviser's Relief Fund is exempted while the FBCCI president said that an individual contribution up to Tk 2.5 lakh is tax-exempt.

Explaining the outcome of the meeting Gen Masud said the business community's commitment at the meeting would be around Tk 20-25 crore in cash and kind (food, cloths and other materials).

The business leaders, however, informed that some trade bodies would hold meetings in a day or two to decide their contributions, which will add more to the amount.

FBCCI president Mir Nasir Hossain estimated that the cumulative figure to be contributed by the business community including banks and telecom companies would be no less than Tk 100 crore.

Large business houses as well as commercial banks will also have to take decisions through their respective Board of Directors. The businessmen also told the meeting that they were already conducting relief activities in their individual capacity.

Mir Nasir, who returned from the affected areas Saturday night, said it is difficult to reach relief materials to some remote places by road. "River routes will be better for such places… but one must have some time in hand."

He said the food crisis has been mitigated to some extent by now and what is essential now is to address the problems of clothes, shelters and water-borne diseases.