Dhaka: Local Government, Rural Development, and Cooperatives Minister Tajul Islam has stated that we had a promise to our ordinary citizens, and we will improve their quality of life. To achieve this, we need to bring electricity to our entire country, and there has been significant industrialization. Its broad impact has affected the climate.
On Friday, September 8th, at the regional climate change conference held at the Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel in the capital’s Banani Sheraton, he made these remarks during his keynote presentation.
The local government minister said that more than 60% of the people in more than 60 parts of Dhaka city did not have sufficient water 10-15 years ago. Now, 100% of the people are getting water. Additionally, factories also need a considerable amount of water. For this reason, we had to establish water treatment plants, and this has had an impact on the climate.
He said that when Bangladesh started its journey as an independent country, our situation was deplorable. Due to the poverty of our people, we knew very little about climate change or similar issues. In 1996, when our current Prime Minister came to power, the foreign reserves were only 329 million US dollars. This reflects the condition at that time.
He further mentioned that when the current Prime Minister came to power again in 2009, foreign reserves were around 700 million dollars. Currently, it has increased to around 2,824 million dollars. This happened because we had a promise.
Tajul Islam stated that the increase in GDP is the reason for the improvement in agriculture. And for this, we have had to switch from traditional farming methods to modern machinery in this sector. Challenges have also arisen for this. It has definitely affected the climate due to carbon emission and heavy metal usage. Alongside, to meet the demands, we had to increase the capacity in our electricity grid. These are the reasons for the impact on climate.
He said that we have implemented MDGs (Millennium Development Goals). SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) implementation started from 2015. We have the target that by 2041, we will elevate our country to a developed nation. During this time, our promise and the people’s demands led us to create the Delta Plan 2100. In 2015, when the Prime Minister traveled to the Netherlands, since we consider the Netherlands to be a successful country in water management, we thought they could help us with the Delta Planning. The Netherlands will assist us in implementing the Delta Plan.
