Bagerhat: Country’s only vocational training and rural rehabilitation centre for physically challenged persons remained non-operational for the last 14 years, causing government assets worth crores of taka to go to waste.
According to Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha, despite having infrastructure, training equipment, and workshop facilities, the centre located at Fakirhat upazila remained abandoned due to lack of manpower, residential facilities, and administrative inertia. Established in 1978 on about 3.6 acres of land beside the Dhaka-Khulna highway at Mulghar area under Fakirhat upazila, the institution once provided training for physically challenged people on various occupations.
Workshop instructor Abdus Sattar informed that before its closure in 2012, a total of 319 physically challenged youths had received training and became self-reliant after taking training in different vocational trades. He mentioned that the centre had 11 approved posts, but almost all employees were transferred elsewhere after the closure, leaving only one trainer currently in service.
Valuable machinery, including lathe and grinding machines collected in the 2010-11 fiscal year, are now lying unused, while vehicles and livestock-related infrastructure have also become unusable. The Department of Social Services noted that the centre was partially renovated in 2017, but training activities could not resume due to the absence of a residential hostel for trainees.
Local physically challenged youth Ramzan Sheikh expressed that he had been waiting for the centre to reopen since the age of 20 and is now 34 without seeing any progress. Deputy Director of the district Social Services Department Santosh Kumar stated that the training activities could resume if a new hostel is built, machinery is repaired, and manpower is appointed.