Begum Rokeya Day will be celebrated on Friday to commemorate the contributions of the pioneer of Bengali women's education and a social reformer for ensuring equal rights for women and men.
But the Begum Rokeya Memorial Centre in Rangpur, inaugurated 21 years ago by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, has remained closed for over a decade.
In observance of the day, the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs has taken up programs, including awarding “Begum Rokeys Padak” to five women for their outstanding contributions to empowering women in the country.
President M Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday issued separate messages paying respect to the memory of Begum Rokeya.
Every year, the local administration chalks out various cultural programs, including discussions on the life and works of the great visionary.
But local people allege that their remembrance of Begum Rokeya is limited to one particular day of the year and that there have been no measures to make the memorial centre functional once again.
Employees at the centre have not been paid salaries for over 14 years and in consequence have been in dire straits. The ancestral home of Begum Rokeya is also on the verge of extinction as influential people have already taken over much of the land belonging to it.
The memorial centre was reopened in 2020 but had to be closed down once again owing to a lack of activities needed to keep it operational.