Around 10,000 residents are living in deplorable conditions at a flood shelter in Subarna Char upazila of Noakhali.
Bangladesh Army built the flood shelter under a residential project in 1998-99 fiscal year to provide housing to 1400 destitute families who had lost their homesteads in the erosion of the Meghna River.
The project provided each family with Tk30,000 and set up an adequate number of sanitary latrine, deep tube-wells and a school.
Upon completion of the project, the then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the project in October, 1999.
However, with time, as different government came to power, the establishments under the project were left in shambles due to a lack of maintenance, alleged many residents at the shelter.
Upon visiting the shelter it was found that the tin-shed roof was damaged enabling rain water to seep into the house.
The tube-wells were out of use while the toilets were broken. The schools is currently closed as a number of people had left the shelter.
A day labourer Golam Rabbani said: “We are passing days with great difficulty at the shelter. We cannot sleep when it rains as the rain water keeps pouring on us. Our children are getting sick.”
Hosne Ara Begum, another resident of the shelter said as the tube-wells were damaged they had to drink water from the pond.
Golam Moula, another resident claimed that although they were promised an acre of land, it was not provided.
They called upon the government to address their problems.
Subara Char Upazila Nirbahi Officer Khalid Mehedi Hasan said the residential project was in a sorry state.
“We have sought help from the government in this regard. Different non-governmental orgaisations are working for the betterment of the families living in the shelter,” he said.