Plan to create databank on blue economy hits snag

The government’s move to create a databank on the blue economy has hardly made any progress mainly due to lack of necessary information in this regard, officials said.

A coordination meeting on the blue economy was held recently with chief of the Blue Economy Cell (BEC) Golam Shafiudin in the chair.

The meeting was informed that the ministries, divisions and agencies were not providing their information on the blue economy regularly. Besides, they did not submit the implementation progress reports accordingly. For this, the move for creating the data bank on the blue economy was not progressing at expected level.

The blue economy cell chief asked all the ministries, divisions and agencies concerned to provide required information on the blue economy including work plan, different latest implementation progress reports and others.

He also asked the authorities concerned to take various steps to enhance the implementation rate of the decisions and projects taken on the blue economy.

The first meeting on the blue economy was held in August 2014 aiming to take up central strategic and action plans for the ministries, divisions and agencies concerned, a high official said.

A 25-member ‘Coordination Committee on Sea Resources Exploration and Fair Management’ headed by Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) was formed on August 20 in 2014. Some 60 decisions were taken in different meetings, but most of them were not implemented to date.

The committee, comprising senior secretary, secretaries and top executives of different ministries and organisations, was supposed to sit in every three months, prepare strategies and monitor implementation of the decisions on the issue.

The rate of implementing the decisions was much below the expected level. For this, the PMO in a review meeting last year asked the ministries and departments concerned to enhance the implementation rate in future, the official said.

The government in January 2017 set up the BEC under Energy and Mineral Resources Division for exploration, conservation, and sustainable collection and management of natural and mineral resources in the Bangladesh territory of the Bay of Bengal.

The BEC could not advance as per the government plan due to lack of proper coordination among the implementing ministries, divisions and agencies. “It’s very difficult to work without coordination because it is a big task,” the official mentioned.

The Bangladesh Navy is working for fishing in deep areas and marine tourism to ensure security of sea resources, according to a source in the environment, forest and climate change ministry.

Three more ports are being set up for export-import activities in future. Skilled human resources are being developed through five marine institutes under the expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment ministry.

Besides, the industries ministry has taken initiative to set up two ship recycling factories in Barguna and Patuakhali.

When contacted, a high official of BEC said the progress in the blue economy was slow due to lack of coordination among the ministries/divisions concerned.

The PMO now coordinates the activities of the blue economy. Currently, the cell is under the Energy Division.