Finance Minister AMA Muhith has sought Tk15 crore from the country’s mobile phone operators for T-20 beautification works and holding of national anthem with record participation.
The government is now implementing beautification works in Dhaka as T-20 World Cup starts on March 16.
Besides, Bangladesh will make record by singing national anthem with 3 lakh people’s participation on its upcoming Independence Day, March 26.
“Mobile operators have been asked for Tk15 crore for the two purposes,” said Citycell CEO Mehboob Chowdhury.
The minister sought the money at a meeting yesterday with the chief executives of six mobile companies.
Post, Telecommunication and Information Technology Minister Abdul Latif Siddiki and general secretary of Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh (Amtob) TIM Nurul Kabir were also present.
The operators have been asked to provide the money by March 14.
At a meeting on Saturday, the finance minister made a same request to the business community also.
AMA Muhith said the government had sought a total of around Tk100 from different communities for the two purposes.
“We have arranged around Tk100 crore in pursuit of these ends,” said Muhith while talking to the journalists after a purchase committee meeting yesterday.
This was the first meet between finance minister and chief executives of mobile operators since the present government assumed office in January.
Meeting sources said the Tk15 core figure was surprisingly low to the operators. Even one CEO was confused by the figure and made clarifying question to the minister, “Is it 15 core or 50 crore?”
In return of the money, the operators will get advertising facility like billboard displays, but the logo of ICC T-20 World Cup will not be allowed in those ads.
The meeting was attended by Grameenphone CEO Vivek Sood, Banglalink CEO Ziad Shatara, Robi CEO Supun Weerasinghe, Airtel CEO Chris Tobit, Teletalk MD Mujibur Rahman and AMTOB secretary general TIM Nurul Kabir.