Speakers at a seminar underscored the need for implementing a comprehensive plan in haor areas for creating easy access of haor people to employment, education, health and sanitation facilities to improve their livelihood.
“As many as 19.37 million people – most of them landless, day laborers and extreme poor – are living in seven northeastern districts with poor livelihood facilities which need to be brought under an inclusive development plan,” said Palli Karma Sahayak Foundation (PKSF) Chairman Dr Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad as the chief guest at a seminar on ‘Sustainable Inclusive Development of Haor People: Innovative Initiative of PKSF at its auditorium in the city on Tuesday.
The state-run PKSF in association with its other associate organizations have a plan to implement a short, medium and long-term planning for the haor region so nobody would leave behind under the inclusive development, said the PKSF Chairman.
The government sponsored financial organization PKSF organized the seminar with its Managing Director Mohammad Abdul Karim in the chair.
The PKSF and its associate organizations are working with 60,000 haor people in three haor districts, “so we have to bring more people under the development plan through improving the quality of their livelihood,” said the PKSF Chairman.
Although our country is progressing toward development, country’s extreme poor is now below 12.4 per cent which is mostly with haor and coastal population, said Microcredit Regulatory Authority (MRA)’s Executive Vice Chairman Amalendu Mukherjee in his address as special guest.
The overall development of the country particularly depends on the development of their livelihood, said MRA official.
Despite the economic importance of the haors people in the region they are poorer than in any other part of the country. More than 28 percent of the total population here lives below the Lower Poverty Line (LPL), he said, adding that development potentials are huge, but they need an integrated approach for maximizing the utilization of resources (both human and natural resources).
The Haor Basin in the north eastern part of Bangladesh is a wetlands ecosystem considered to be of international ecological importance due to the extensive waterfowl population that uses the basin as its habitat. The saucer shaped shallow depression (also known as a backswamp) covers parts of the districts of Sunamganj, Moulvibazar and Habiganj, and stretches as far as Kishorenganj and Netrokona.
The Haor Basin is estimated to stretch over an area of 4450 square kilometers and 2.5 million hectares. It is further estimated that the total area of haor-type wetlands throughout Bangladesh exceeds 8 million hectares.
