PROBLEMS with the implementation of the government’s development programmes are nothing new. In addition to resource constraints, poor quality of projects and interference by the vested quarters in the selection of development projects, the failure of the line ministries to implement projects in time has been one of the major weaknesses of the public sector development programmes. Much has been said from time to time from the highest political level and by the multilateral donors to improve the situation. But the problems in the area of selection of projects and their implementation have been persisting. Of late, another problem - quite serious in nature - has been added to the long list of problems affecting the development process. The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) has not been holding its meetings in regular frequencies thereby creating a serious backlog in approval of projects and releases of fund for their implementation. According to a report published in this daily Saturday, the ECNEC could hold only 10 meetings throughout the last financial year (2002-03). This, the report said, had created a backlog in the approval and fund release for more than 1200 projects of the Annual Development Programme (ADP) for the last fiscal. On an average, the ECNEC has been holding at least 30 meetings a year in recent times. The inadequate number of ECNEC meetings, reportedly, has been delaying the implementation of projects, and thereby creating a situation in which unfinished projects in large numbers are transferred to the next year’s ADP. Such a situation does not conform to the government''s avowed policy of speeding up the process of project implementation. The ECNEC - the highest body to approve development projects - often holds the line ministries responsible for the failures to implement projects in time. The line ministries, which are habitual defaulters, do not mind a few harsh words either from the Prime Minister or the Finance Minister - the Chairman and the alternate Chairman of ECNEC respectively. But what happens if the ECNEC itself fails to perform its job in time? It actually loses the moral authority to blame others for their lapses. How can a government that claims itself to be extremely serious about reducing poverty through various development and target-oriented programmes, be so casual about the timely holding of the ECNEC meetings? How can it be so oblivious of the serious implications of the delays in the release of funds for the already approved projects? The government is now finalising a three-year rolling investment plan in the light of the UN Millennium Development Goal of halving the existing poverty rate by 2015. Then again, the government has approved the largest ever development expenditure programmes for the current fiscal year with the objective of reducing the poverty level in the country. The development expenditures, no doubt, have ‘trickle-down’ effects on the poverty situation. Yet economists are of the opinion that the ‘trickle-down’ effects need to be supplemented by ‘bubble-up’ effect created by human development activities, micro-credit and various forms of social mobilisation programmes, for achieving the desired rate of poverty reduction. Under the circumstances, the public sector development programmes are very important in achieving the desired goal of poverty reduction. There are a lot of snags in the preparation as well as implementation of development projects. Corruption, inefficiency, bureaucratic inertia etc., have been responsible for low quality and delayed implementation of a large number of development projects. And addition of the latest and unexpected one - the inadequate number of ECNEC meetings - would make the task of achieving poverty reduction within a reasonable time further difficult. Since the Prime Minister and the Finance and Planning Minister often ask the line ministries to restore discipline in project implementation, they themselves need to find time within their busy schedules to attend ECNEC meetings regularly. That will make their directive more credible and effective.

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BANGLADESH faces economic trouble considerably due to under performance in the banking system. Huge amounts of bank loans are classified and the situation is not improving. The finance minister is always expressing his dissatisfaction over the performance of the nationalised commercial banks (NCBs) where little change is noticed. The business health of a bank depends on prompt decision for investment of its funds as well as recovery of those in time. If the recovery is continuously disrupted, the health of the bank will be affected and at a certain time, if such a situation continues, it is likely to collapse. During the late 90s, default loans were piling up and the volumes were so large that the non-recovery situation turned into a default culture. The default culture has now reached such a level that some commercial banks are unable to bear the burden of huge non-performing loans ranging from 35 to 40 per cent of their total resources. As a result, we have reached a stage where piled up overdue loans has been acting as a dead weight on both the supply and price of credit that affect the development of the economy. A very disturbing problem in the financial sector in Bangladesh is its ineffective legal framework. This has allowed the credit delinquency to linger on eroding the vitality of the sector. Meanwhile, steps so far taken, proved to be too inadequate and ineffective as well as time consuming that helped the default borrowers to escape from the repayment. As a result, the banks are running short of required funds to meet the long-term needs for industrialisation. The banks are facing challenging tasks in recovering the stuck-up loans due to legal as well as administrative faults. Even legal measures including the introduction of the Artha Rin Adalat Act-1990, the Bankruptcy Act 1997 etc. could not help improve the recovery position of the default loans. Artha Rin Adalat Act was enacted in 1990 many sections of which proved to be ineffective. Thus, the government showed its sincerity in enacting the new Artha Rin Adalat-2003 having eight chapters with 60 sections totaling near about 160 sub-sections. The main objective of the act is more codification of the Civil Procedure, 1908, simplification of the procedure for filing of suit and dispensing the judgment of the suit within a minimum time schedule, emphasise upon the documentary evidence, alternative dispute resolution (ADR), changes in Limitation Act-1908, changes in the doctrine of finality and limitation on the claim amount, appeal against the decree, writ in the High Court etc. All concerned should encourage mitigation of the conflicts avoiding the litigation to reduce the number of suits pending in the different courts. Banks should have a distinct policy as to how to achieve the best of the results out of the existing system, keeping in mind that bankers deal in business and return is their main motto, not the litigation. In the court proceedings, the major concern of all is the cases remaining pending for long. We may term such long pending cases as responsible for long term-classified loans bleeding the economy. So, the main focus ought to be concentrating on removing this time lag. In this act, the time frame for awarding judgment has been deduced and made specific for different stages of trials. It would take maximum 160 days for a normal verdict. According to the new act, the financial institutions will not file any case with the Artha Rin Adalat without selling off the mortgaged properties of the accused on which they have legal control. By enactment of this act, the bank is awarded a major strength of power to the sell the mortgaged property that was a long-term demand of the bankers’ community. Using the Power of Attorney, a banker can propose to sell the mortgaged property with the assistance of the District Magistrate. If situation warrants so, the banker would place requisition and the District Magistrate would use its administrative power to hand over the possession of the property to the buyer of the land. It has been observed that the normal verdict cannot come out due to delay for services return. Months after months pass but services are not returned for unknown reasons. But in this act, a provision has been made to the effect that notice must be serviced within 15 days, in case of failure, paper notice would be sufficient to serve the purpose of service return. There is also a provision to file the proforma notice along with the plaint to be submitted at the time of filing suits. This would not only serve the early delivery of decree, but also reduces the corruption as well. The new act has also kept alternative means for settling the money suits. One alternative is "settlement conferences" which implies that the court can dispose of a case through settlement conferences, where both the parties and their lawyers will be present under the chairmanship of the judge. However, the judge cannot press the parties to accept his or her proposal at such conferences. The second alternative is "arbitration or mediation" by an independent lawyer or retired judge, or retired bank official or any other appropriate persons to be appointed with the mutual consent of the parties to money suits. The alternative approaches are not basically out of the court "compromise settlement" (which has played a significant role in reducing NPL in India). These can be better termed as quasilegal court settlement. In this act, the proceedings in the court cannot be stayed for any other cases pending in other courts and it cannot be stayed for more than one time. However, on payment of some amount the court may allow it for another time only in case of reasonability. Another important aspect featuring this act is to make the bank official liable to punishment if the proportionate amount is not paid and as such, if the suit is not filed. The banker would be put under disciplinary action due to his negligence in filing the suit as the defaulter does not approach to reschedule the account with the payment of 10.0% in the first year, 15.0% in the second year or 25.0% in the third year and the court is to be informed accordingly. The Judge would provide his verdict despite the absence of plaintiff. Under such a circumstances, the banker would be held responsible if the verdict is against the bank due to faulty preparation of the complaints. Exparte decree will be awarded if the defendant absents from the court or is not available. Against the decree, the defendant can file application within 30 days from the date of decree provided he or she should deposit 10.0% of suit amount to the court within 15 days of the application. No question can be raised against the judgment of the court defying the rules of the act in any court of law in the country. This act further goes to attach any other deposits found in the bank or post-office for adjustment of the liability. In case of declining the payment by the concerned banks/financial institutions, the court may draw the proceedings against the banks/financial institutions where the funds are held and recover the amount. Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) is an unique mechanism in the judicial history to settle litigations. It is a mechanism for outside court settlement of cases to mitigate the sufferings of the litigant people and reduce the huge pending cases. By way of adopting ADR, it would improve the efficiency, effectiveness and accountability of the civil justice delivery system and increase access of justice, particularly for women and poor. The expected outcome would be improvement in governance in the country and stimulating private sector growth and investment. The enactment of this law has ushered a new era in the banking sector in recovering the long dues and is expected curb the burgeoning default culture. This would bring a substantial change in the recovery drive. And as such, the economy may be relieved from the curse of the stuck up loans and investments. We are hopeful for the best. (The writer is the Vice President of Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd., Rajshahi)

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THE time has come to think again about maintenance of quality of services. It is necessary as the service sectors are growing very rapidly and more and more people are engaging themselves in the service sectors, either as consumers or as income-generators. In fact, there is no effective control of the service sector as a whole in the country. A national policy in this connection is yet to be formulated and followed. The issue of quality control of services surfaced as the mobile phone operators in the country started fierce competition in reducing call charges. They also announced other facilities for their clients. Now the question is whether the users are getting proper services from the companies. Besides, doubt is also expressed whether facilities promised by the companies are really available to the users. The phone users are lucky, in one sense, that there is a telecommunication regulatory commission to supervise the activities of the telephone service providers. The users of wire telephone have filed complaints to the authorities for decades to get uninterrupted service, but their complaints were in vain. The telephone authority had an advantage earlier to ignore all complaints of the telephone services users as the telephone board was a monopoly authority. It is still maintaining its monopoly in connection with wire telephone. There are several companies in operation of mobile telephone service. They are actually facing each other in a competitive market. The consumers of mobile phone service can get benefit of the competition among the companies if quality of service could be controlled by an independent body. The telecommunication commission is entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring quality of service provided by the companies. The telephone companies are offering different packages and reduced call charges as they are fighting for a considerable share of the market. This competitive spree is in favour of the consumers. But it may be temporarily comfortable. The situation might go against the interest of consumers as soon as the companies would be able to establish co-ordination among themselves. There is every possibility of forming an invisible cartel of the companies to take united move for exploiting consumers if the regulatory body fails to remain alert to avert any such design. The monopolistic control by the mobile telephone companies would drag the consumers to endless sufferings in relation to charges and service quality. The issue of maintaining service quality is not associated with only the tele-communication sector. It is also true in connection with other service providing organisation including gas distribution, water supply, electricity, postal delivery, education, health care and so on. The electricity department and gas distributing agencies carry monitoring activities simply to detect and collect due bills. They are less interested in identifying the sufferings of their consumers. The agencies do not feel it at all necessary to detect their own defects and shortcomings in properly serving the consumers. It is advocated by many that formation of an independent body to regulate and monitor the activities of service providers, both in the public and the private sectors, for safeguarding and upholding the interests of consumers, might improve the situation. The importance of the service sector is increasing over time with the growth and diversification of the economy. This is the high time to bring the service providers under a reasonable network for control. The best thing would be to allow them to serve the people with respective service under nationally accepted guidelines. The regulatory body that is expected to be formed in future would monitor the service conditions and qualities following such guidelines. The guidelines should be formulated with the view of protecting consumers from any kind of service fraud. It is pressed not only for the benefit of consumers, but also for the service providers who are also consumers. The common people do not possess enough access to the policy makers and high government officials who take decision on matters affecting consumers without consulting them. The commoners are gradually getting chance to express their voice before the decision makers. The formation of a regulatory body exclusively for supervising and monitoring of service provided by different agencies and organisations would create a facility to consumers for ventilating their opinions and views. Consumers expect that their concerns in the context of services should be taken into serious consideration. Measures are needed to immediately to establish a body for controlling the quality of services. The system of mere issuing of licence to businesses in the service sectors will not protect consumer interest. There must be an effective quality controlling system applicable to all services.

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MANY people suffer pain so severe that they cannot work, sleep or even walk about. Sometimes they experience an unbearable burning when their skin, is lightly touched. As a consequence they may be unable to dress normally. Yet there is nothing visible to account for their symptoms. The unsolved problem of what is called neuropathic pain is now being tackled by United Kingdom scientists at Bristol University, western England, using new technology to identify targets for novel pain-killing drugs. The Bristol team has formed a spin-off company to exploit their discoveries, to develop wholly new pain-killing drugs and to work with large pharmaceutical companies to market them and develop more such drugs. The first clinical trials of the first such drugs are expected in about four years'' time. There are two main kinds of pain: inflammatory pain - which is caused when tissues are damaged by viruses, bacteria, trauma, chemicals, heat, cold or any other harmful stimulus - and neuropathic pain. Neuropathic pain is caused by damage to sensory nerves. It is such damage that leads to persistent pain sensations, although no external stimulus is any longer actually stimulating, the nerve that causes the sensation. The "false" or neuropathic pain sensations caused in this way range from mild irritation to excruciating torture. At present there is very often little that can be done to alleviate them. Researchers at Bristol University''s Research Centre for Neuro endocrinology who are studying neuropathic pain have identified a number of genes that could become targets for new drugs to control it. A Bristol University spin-off company, NeuroTargets, has been set up to identify and license genes as such targets. The technique developed by the Bristol team to identify genes involved in neuropathic pain is already being used to identify genes involved in other medical conditions, including stroke as well as inflammatory pain. Because neuropathic pain is caused by damage to nerves, not by an external agent, if the damage persists and does not heal completely or perfectly then the pain may persist indefinitely. Often this chronic suffering is made worse by hyperalgesia - abnormal sensitivity to pain. Often hyperalgesic pain, as well as being chronic, fails to respond to standard analgesia of any kind. Some 15 to 20 per cent of people affected by diabetes are hyperalgesic. The cause of hyperalgesia is still not properly understood but it appears to be in the brain because brain cells carrying sensory messages in the brain cannot repair themselves after injury, unlike sensory nerves in the body that have the capacity to repair themselves. For the past eight years David Wynick, Professor of Molecular Medicine at the Neuroendocrinology Research Centre at Bristol, and his group have been focusing on the mechanism of hyperalgesia in the brain and in particular on the role of galanin, a neuropeptide (a small molecule derived from a protein and involved in communication between brain cells) in the brain. Galanin has proved to be a vital molecule involved in controlling not only pain but also the growth of nerves carrying pain messages and their regeneration after injury. Galanin, David Wynick''s research has shown, is produced in increased quantities after injury to nerves. It is stored in a number of brain centres, as well as in peripheral nerves supplying the skin, strongly suggesting that galanin must play a role in the response of both the brain and spine and the peripheral nervous system to injury. In order to find out exactly what galanin does, Professor Wynick''s team has produced mice which have no gene for galanin, so they cannot produce the substance. These mice are known, in researchers'' argon, as galanin knock-out mice (galanin KO mice). They have been used to show that as well as controlling the numbers of nerves carrying pain messages to the brain, galanin also controls pain by inhibiting the transmission of pain messages along the spine. Professor Wynick has used a new technique to discover the differences between the genes which are active in neuropathic pain in ordinary mice and those which are active in galanin KO mice. He found differences involving more than 200 genes. In this way the KO mouse has been and is being used to identify the genes involved in neuropathic pain, and of course the proteins produced by the genes, some of which are potential targets for new drugs to control neuropathic pain. This approach has already generated more drug targets than NeuroTargets can afford to develop in house. The company plans to license genes to major pharmaceutical companies as drug targets. Such drugs could relieve a vast amount of human suffering and find huge markets around the world. Neuropathic pain affects three million people in the US alone. Diabetes, herpes, phantom limbs and Aids are all frequent causes of neuropathic pain which will be the first condition to be treated with drugs developed by NeuroTargets. Beyond that, the company plans to use the same gene-screening technique developed by David Wynick to identify differences from the normal in the expression of genes in stroke and in the other main category of pain, inflammatory pain, to hopefully identify new targets for drugs to treat those conditions. As time goes on the ability to pick out differences in the expression of genes between normal and ill people seems very likely to lead to the identification of more and more new targets for drugs and the development of more and more new drugs aimed at such targets. -LPS

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PRIVATE health care facilities are no doubt filling gaps both in terms of quantity and quality in extending health care to people. Therefore, there are powerful arguments in favour of retaining and enlarging the private health care system in the country. Pathological testing centres, private clinics and heart treatment and operation facilities of international standard have been established in recent years in Bangladesh. As a result, the effectiveness of testing and treatment in these fields have much improved and also the costs of treatments have fallen because basing on these new medical units patients, who previously went abroad for treatment at high costs, can get equivalent treatment at home at lower costs. This is no doubt meeting well the requirements of the middle class and higher middle class of people in the country and have also opened up a good source of investment for entrepreneurs in the medical field. However, there are areas such as kidney dialysis, kidney transplants, cancer, etc., where the availability of quality institutions for treatment in the country are practically nil or negligible. There are hundreds of thousands of kidney patients in the country and a huge demand for dialysis thereof. Entrepreneurs wishing to get a good return on their investments and to provide a badly needed service to suffering people as well, can consider setting up a large number of dialysis centres. The same sort of investment would be welcome and can be specially profitable for setting up facilities for kidney transplants, orthopaedic units and cancer treatment. Thus, the expanding role of the private sector as a supportive one to the public sector, should be welcome in the context of Bangladesh. The only concern, however, in this expansion is about quality. So far, the growth of private medical care in the country has presented the patients with mixed or varied experiences. In some cases, and these are limited in number, patients can expect to get high quality or international standard service while in may other cases they do not get their money’s worth. Reports frequently appear in the press about substandard private clinics or even clinics that do not have the basic registration or approval from the authorities to operate. Reportedly, private medical colleges have been set up which appear to be seriously deficient in imparting proper or practical education to students who enrol at these institutions. Thus, there is a pressing need to improve regulation to enforce standard of service in the private health sector. Government should also opt for policy measures such as lowering taxes on imported medical equipment and the like, plus reducing various other charges affecting the investors in private medical care facilities. These steps can be immensely helpful in accelerating investments in this field and should also contribute in the longer term to reducing the current drain of resources on foreign medical care by Bangladeshis.

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THE four party alliance government led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has been in office or nearly two years. The government can justifiably draw attention to its achievement in the diplomatic spheres during this period. It came under intense pressures from very powerful countries and even from a superpower. It goes to its credit that it has successfully held itself steady in the face of such pressures and has not compromised the vital national interests. Vital donor organisations, high ranking foreign dignitaries, ambassadors and others have time and again practically tried to arm twist the government into accepting their suggestion of piping Bangladesh’s natural gas to users in India. The government of Bangladesh, given the country’s considerable vulnerabilities to external pressure, has done remarkably well in withstanding the unreasonable pressures and even made some progress in conveying this country’s difficulties in accepting the suggestion. It must have been well communicated to the advocates of gas export that Bangladesh could not take a decision on a matter of life and death importance to it in the economic sense without sounding out the expert national opinion. The government had set up export committees to examine the issue and the committees in their completely unbiased opinion recommended against gas export. All relevant organisations and forums in the country have also opposed the export of gas on very valid economic grounds. The opposition political quarters are also overwhelmingly against the export of gas. Thus, a national consensus has formed after a thorough national debate and stock taking by expert which is opposed to gas export. It goes to the credit of the government that it did not superimpose a decision on a matter of very great importance for the country but subjected it to the democratic process of debate, discussion and scrutiny by all concerned to arrive at a consensus opinion. Now, it would be guided by the outcome of this fully democratic process in the highest national interest and the advocates of gas export cannot have any objection to such steps. Prior to the taking over by the incumbent government, Bangladesh’s foreign policy seemed to be motivated mainly by the desire to appease India and an obsession to please the USA. Understandably, both countries have much clout over Bangladesh and for both security and economic interests, successive governments in Bangladesh have tended to meet any request from these two countries. But the present government has been considerably different in its attitude. It has sought to maintain the best of relations with the two countries while carefully steering away from a path that would require Bangladesh to surrender pathetically to their dictates. Meanwhile, the Bangladesh government was successful in strengthening relations with other powerful and useful countries in the region. Specially, relations with China that have been stagnant under the previous elected government, have much improved. Bangladesh has largely broken through its diplomatic isolation or only hobnobbing with India and US. It can now count upon China’s active support to it in the areas of security and economic cooperation. It has bolstered contacts with regionally important countries - Thailand and Malaysia. The foreign policy of Bangladesh pursued during the last nearly two years appeared diverse - as it should be - to contribute to the country’s security and promote its economic interests. Abu Taher Baridhara, Dhaka

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