Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday stressed the importance of good governance and asked the government officials to devote themselves to serving people to make this society a better place.

“I hope you’ll devote yourselves to serving people remaining faithful to the constitutional responsibilities,” she said.

The Prime Minister was addressing the certificate-giving and closing ceremony of the 119th and 120th Law and Administration Training Courses at Bangladesh Civil Service Administration Academy in the capital through a videoconference from her official residence Ganobhaban.

As per the 7th article of the Constitution, Hasina mentioned,  people are the owners of the country while the 21(2) article of the constitution stated that government employees are bound to serve  people round the clock.

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She directed the public servants to take innovative initiatives to serve people as the government has prepared a Perspective Plan and is implementing it. “We’ve already attained the status of a developing nation and we’ve to maintain that so that we do not fall behind.”

Hasina said it is the desire of all that there will be a service-oriented administration in the country which will innovate new services to serve people.

“Stay involved in establishing good governance through proper enforcement of laws, stay beside people, and make sure people get justice and not a single person suffers from starvation, remains homeless, is deprived of treatment and education. Discharge your responsibilities keeping eyes on these issues, we want that,” she said.

Talking about the food scarcity in the Covid-19 pandemic across the globe, the Prime Minister said the food scarcity has increased around the world and many countries are suffering from this. “Not a single inch of arable land be left behind from cultivation.”

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Hasina said every piece of land in every area of the country must be put under cultivation to increase production and mentioned that many developed countries are in deplorable condition regarding food production. “We may have to provide food assistance to many developed countries, maybe. Keeping this view in mind, we’ve to make sure there’s no scarcity of food and protein in the country.”

Hasina asked all concerned to add more food and processed food items to the country’s export basket.

She said Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman devoted his entire life towards changing the fate of people as they were poor and destitute. “So, you’ll have to think about them (people) and work to change their fortune.”

The government wants to build Bangladesh as a hunger- and poverty-free non-communal country where everyone will live with dignity, she added.

Hasina said the government wants to develop government employees suitable for keeping the pace of the world to develop the country further.

She asked the trained officers to utilise their knowledge acquired in the training course for the development of the country.

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Presided over by State Minister for Public Administration Farhad Hossain, the function was addressed, among others, by Public Administration senior Secretary KM Ali Azam and Rector of the BCS Administration Mominur Rashid Amin.

On behalf of the Prime Minister, Farhad Hossain handed over the awards to the best performers of the 119th and 120th training courses respectively.

Two fresh officers and rector award winners -- Swikriti Pramanik of the 119th course and Umme Salma Naznin Tosha of the 120th course -- spoke at the function on behalf of the participants of the training course.

A video documentary on Bangladesh Civil Service Administration Academy was played at the programme.