The government has made a move to take up a Tk198.77 crore project to upgrade the Fire Service and Civil Defence Department.
The move came two days after the failure of the department to rescue four-year old Jihad trapped down in a nearly-500ft abandoned well.
The failure drew wide critcism from people who were watching live rescue operation on private television channels.
The project titled Modernisation of Fire Service and Civil Defence is expected to be placed at the Executive Committee of National Economic Council meeting to be held today with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
With the support of public fund the project will be completed by June 2017, according to the project proposal.
The project was supposed to be placed eight months back after the project evaluation committee recommended modernisation of the Fire Service and Civil Defence in April last.
“The Jihad’s unfortunate incident prompted the government to take up the project,” said an official at the Planning Ministry.
According to the proposal, three excavators (60-ton capacity each), one crane for rescue operation, four turntable ladders (sophisticated vehicle with fire fighting equipment), five emergency tenders (modernised vehicle equipped with rescue operation materials), four water tenders, four special water tenders (with 11000 liter container), 12 towing vehicles (special vehicle used in fire fighting and rescue) and other necessary equipment will be procured.
Currently, there is no sophisticated equipment to carry out rescue operation like Jihad incident and earthquake, according to the project proposal.
Volunteers recovered the body of little Jihad just 10 minutes after 23-hour long rescue operation was called off by the civil fire service on Saturday afternoon.
Jihad allegedly fell inside the 16-inch diameter shaft, around 40 yards from his house in the capital’s Shahjahanpur Railway Colony at about 4pm on Friday while playing with other children.
Soon after the body was retrieved, angry locals of the colony vandalised a police outpost near the spot and totally demolished a makeshift house made by the contractor company who built the pipeline where Jihad had fallen into.
