Amdadul Haque
Administration officials and employees are working at the field at high risk to ensure that people maintain social distancing, and that overseas returnees remain in quarantine.
The executive magistrates at the district and upazila administrations are in the forefront in implementing the directives to maintain lock down and social distancing of the people across the country.
They have to be involved in all sorts of activities, including relief distribution, running mobile courts, compiling lists of the poor, and burying coronavirus victims. While performing these duties, the field administration officials are also getting infected with coronavirus. Most of them are executive magistrates, about half of them, females.
According to the Ministry of Public Administration, a total of 21 administration cadre field officers have already been infected with the coronavirus. At least 9 of them are women. However, the ministry could not provide any details about the victims.
It has been learned that the officials of Habiganj district have been most infected. Five officers, including DC Kamrul Hasan and Additional District Magistrate Umme Israt, were attacked there. The other four are AC Land Matiur Rahman of Baniachang Upazila, District Executive Magistrate Afia Amin Pappa and Saeed Mohammad Ibrahim. UNO Baishakhi Barua of Hajiganj in Chandpur is in home quarantine after being attacked by coronavirus. Mahmuda Begum, AC Land in Jamalpur has been newly infected.
Among the officials of the administration cadre, ACC director Jalal Saifur died of coronavirus in Dhaka on April 6. Besides, an additional secretary of the Health Ministry and an additional secretary of the Information Ministry have been attacked.
Helaluddin Ahmed, president of the Bangladesh Administrative Service Association and secretary of the local government department, told the media that field administration DCs, UNOs and executive magistrates are in the frontline. So far, a total of 25 officials of the administration cadre have been infected with coronavirus. Most of them are executive magistrates of field administrations.
Asim Chandra Banik, UNO of Juri upazila, said, “work has to be done to ensure social distancing, run mobile courts, quarantine expatriates, monitor markets and prepare multiple assistance lists. Due to this, working in the field administration has become risky.”
Dhaka Divisional Commissioner Mostafizur Rahman said, “Dhaka is now a hot spot of coronavirus. In Dhaka metropolis, the number of patients identified is more than 57 percent of the total patients in the country. One lakh 13 thousand families live in 73 slums in Dhaka. Narayanganj, Narsingdi, Ashulia and Gazipur industrial areas of Dhaka division have high population density. If someone is infected with coronavirus in slums and industrial areas, there will be no place to keep them in isolation. Due to these reasons, handling the situation in Dhaka division is the biggest challenge.”
Meanwhile, field level customs officials said that they had not received any protective gear from the revenue board or any other government agencies although they were always required to come into contact with people, including importers, exporters and their agents.
Field offices and officials obtained protective gear on their own or from private organizations, they said. Officials working at the customs houses and LC stations cannot maintain social or physical distance due to the rush of stakeholders, and risk their lives for being more prone to contracting the virus, they added.
An executive magistrate from Chattogram, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the infection news of executive magistrates is not coming up in the same way to the media as the news of police and doctors being infected. There are focal points of other sectors centrally for informing. But even if the administration cadres lead from the front, there is no one to present their information to the media.
However, the government has directed law enforcers and local administrations not to commit excesses with general people while performing duties in the country to prevent the spread of coronavirus. The directive came amid reports of harassment, torture and humiliation of people by members of law enforcement agencies and officials of local administrations in many places.
