Staff Reporter:
Popular tourist destination Cox’s Bazar has turned into a development hub with the implementation of several mega projects, including the new rail link with Chittagong and a deep sea port and coal power plant at Matarbari.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is set to inaugurate 20 development projects in Cox’s Bazar during her visit on Saturday. To welcome the premier, the entire district is in a state of festivity. Enthusiasm is seen among party activists and ordinary people.
Banners, festoons, posters and billboards have covered the city’s main streets and alleys. Apart from cleaning the garbage from the streets, the authorities are also working to ensure street lighting in parallel.
The premier will officially open the country’s only iconic railway station in Cox’s Bazar at 10am. Later, she will inaugurate the coal power plant at Matarbari in Maheshkhali and participate in a public meeting organized by the district unit of the Awami League.
Party leaders want to surprise the prime minister’s arrival by making the largest gathering of people in memory. Party activists are thrilled since it is Sheikh Hasina’s last visit to the district before the general election in January.
Municipal Mayor and former district unit Jubo League general secretary Md Mahabubur Rahman said all kinds of preparations have been completed to make the prime minister’s public rally a success.
“There is nothing happier than the prime minister coming to Cox’s Bazar. She has given us much more than we asked for. Most of the mega projects are around Cox’s Bazar. The government is going to make a new revolution by inaugurating the Chittagong-Cox’s Bazar railway line.”
Deputy Commissioner Muhammad Shaheen Imran said: “Cox’s Bazar district administration and other departments have completed all preparations for the prime minister’s arrival.”
The 102km new rail link, built at a cost of Tk18,000 crore, will attract people from all over the country and abroad to visit Cox’s Bazar. It will also boost the government’s revenue sector, said Saimum Sarwar Kamal, member of parliament from Cox’s Bazar-3 constituency.
These development projects will bring revolutionary changes to the national economy and advance the tourism industry, civil society leaders say, stressing the need to prepare for the challenges that will surface after the development projects are launched.
