Officials and employees are hardly eager for renting government staff quarters as they are pricey, forcing the authorities to keep 70% of the quarters in an abandoned state verging on ruin in Natore district town for long.
Sources in the Public Works Department, which oversee government staff quarters, said there are 43 staff quarters in the town. Of them, 30 have been in an abandoned state, six rented and seven others grabbed by locals for a long time.
The abandoned quarters have become the dens of drug addicts, who are also stealing doors, windows and other furniture and selling them out. Now these staff quarters are almost left with nothing but their basic structures, they said.
The sources added that the rent of a staff quarter flat between Tk 6000 to 12000 is too much for an officer or employee and so they do not rent government quarters. Rather, they go for private quarters, which are affordable to them.
They suggested that the government should repair the abandoned staff quarters and reclaim the grabbed ones and reduce the rent rate, paving the way for adding lakhs of taka to the state’s coffer every year.
To be specific, 32 quarters are under the PWD, four under the Power Development Board (PDB) and seven others under Natore Railway Authority.
Of the PWD quarters, 14 are situated at Palpara and Borgachha area in the town. Of them, 12 are categorised as A and 2 others as B. Again, of the quarters, 12 have been in an abandoned state for a long time.
Twelve quarters are under PWD at Rajbari area. Of them, two are used by staff while the rest have been in an abandoned state for long.
There are also six PWD quarters at Kandivituwa Moholla, of which four have been abandoned. Besides these, four PDB quarters have been in an abandoned state at Alaipur for ages.
Out of seven quarters under the railway authority, three quarters have been being gabbed by local kitchen traders and four others by locally influential people at Station Bazar for a long time.
PWD Executive Engineer Moshiur Rahman was asked about this all, he admitted and said: “We have already urged the higher authority to repair the quarters soon. If so, the government can earn at least Tk3 lakh per month.”