Bangladesh Cabinet on Monday (Feb 9, 2015) approved a proposal to create separate ‘Department of Telecommunications’ (DOT) under the Division of Post and Telecommunications.
The approval was given in the weekly cabinet meeting held at Bangladesh Secretariat with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
Briefing reporters after the meeting, Cabinet Secretary M Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan said the department will provide professional and technical support to the government in policy framework in the telecommunications sector.
“It will be an effective but small department with only 238 permanent posts including 81 cadre posts. However, the department will begin its journey with much more cadre and non-cadre staff, out of which 7,536 will gradually be abolished,” he said.
The department will absorb the officials of the telecommunications cadre who are now attached to the state owned BTCL on deputation.
The cabinet secretary said the government can create a department under a ministry through an executive order. But Division of Post and Telecommunications, which is now under the Prime Minister, decided to put the proposal of creating DOT to the cabinet as the matter is related to policy issue.
The cabinet has sent back a draft on ‘Public Corporation (Management-Coordination) Act, 2015′ for review. The draft was made upgrading the existing ‘Public Corporation (Management-Coordination) Ordinance, 1986.’
The cabinet secretary said the ordinance was framed during the era of the military rule for coordination and maintaining consistency in the activities of the state run corporations.
A number of cabinet members raised questions about the necessity of the law against the backdrop of inoperativeness of the existing ordinance.
Musharraf Hossain said a cabinet committee will examine the necessity of such a law and submit report to the government. If the cabinet committee feels the necessity of the law then it will be placed again before the cabinet for approval, he said.
In the meeting, Ministry of Housing and Public Works informed the cabinet about the visit of the minister to South Korea from November 3 to 5, 2014 to attend the 5th Asia pacific Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development’.
The meeting was also informed about the visit of the minister of environment and forests to Lima, Peru from December 9 to 12, 2014 to attend ‘COP-20′ under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Kyoto Protocol. –Our Monitor