Upazila Parishad Bangladesh

Introduction:

Bangladesh has a unitary form of government. The President is the Head of State and the Prime Minister is the Head of Government. The Prime Minister is assisted by a Council of Ministers. The permanent office-in-charge of the Ministries / Divisions is designated as Secretary who belongs to the Civil Service. For administrative purposes, the country is divided into seven divisions, each headed by a Divisional Commissioner. There are 64 districts under the 7 Divisions. The district is administered by a Deputy Commissioner who is assisted by Additional Deputy Commissioners. The District has a Zilla Parishad headed by a Chairman. The Districts are divided into Upazilas headed by a Upazila Chairman. Currently, there are 583 Upazilas in Bangladesh. After revisions of its structure by different governments, the local government system now has three tiers--union parishad, upazila parishad and zila parishad.

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS: PAST AND PRESENT:

In 1976, General Ziaur Rahman promulgated a local government ordinance providing for zila parishad in each district.

Though the ordinance said the parishads shall be composed of elected representatives for a five-year term, no elections have yet been held. Instead, deputy commissioners were appointed ex-officio chairmen of the parishads. Two years after promulgation of the ordinance, the country's first military ruler amended the constitution through a martial law proclamation to bring back the provision requiring the government to promote local government institutions. Grabbing state power in 1982, General HM Ershad introduced upazila parishads. During his rule, he promulgated an ordinance and five acts including the zila parishad act of 1988. Each thana was upgraded to upazila and designated as focal point of administration with responsibility for all local development activities.

The central government retained the authority to oversee regulatory functions and major development activities of national and regional importance. Ershad regime held two upazila elections--one in 1985 and the other in 1990.

Zila parishads constituted under the act of 1988 worked up to 1990. With the downfall of Ershad, the zila parishad chairmen, most of whom were MPs from Ershad's Jatiya Party, were removed and DCs returned as ex-officio chairmen.

The BNP-led government also abolished the upazila system shortly after coming to power in 1991. Things did not improve even after reintroduction of the constitutional provisions on local government in 1991. The zila parishads continued functioning under the act of 1988 during the BNP rule between 1991 and 1996. In 2000, the AL-led government repealed the zila parishad act of 1988 and framed a new law providing for direct election to the parishads. But up till now, no election has been held, allowing the bureaucrats to run the parishads. In 1998, the AL-led government reinstated the upazila system. But over 12 more years were needed to hold elections. Upazila polls were finally held in January last year, but the elected representatives have not yet been able to do much due to opposition from local administration and interference from the lawmakers who are advisers to the parishads.

“We are kind of left to rot. We have little to do since UNOs are doing most of the work with the help of the MPs,” Ataur Rahman Ata, chairman of Manikganj sadar upazila, told The Daily Star recently.

Though elections to union parishads, the lowest tier of local government, were held almost regularly since independence, no major reforms have been made to strengthen them. Union parishad elections were held in 1973, 1977, 1983, 1988, 1992, 1997 and 2003. The present union parishads are facing a legitimacy crisis, as two years have passed since expiry of their tenure.The last union parishad elections were held between January 25 and March 16 in 2003. The next elections were supposed to be held in early 2008, but that could not happen as the country was under a state of emergency and there was no union parishad act. 

Bangladesh Gazette for Upazila Parishad: 

An Act made to further amend the Local Government (Upazila Parishad and Upazila Administration Reorganization) Ordinance, 1982. Whereas it is expedient to further amend the Local Government (Upazila Parishad and Upazila Administration Reorganization) Ordinance, 1982 (LIX of 1982;

Now, therefore, it is herewith enacted as follows:-

1. Short title and commencement:

(a) This Act may be called the Local Government (Upazila Parishad and Upazila Administration Reorganization) (Amendment) Act, 1987.
 
(b) It shall be deemed to have come into force on the 4th June, 1987 (20th Jyaishtha, 1394.

2. Insertion of the new section 13A in Ord. No.LIX of 1982:

After section 13 of the Local Government (Upazila Parishad and Upazila Administration Reorganization) Ordinance, 1982 (LIX of 1982) the following new section shall be inserted, namely:- "13A. Suspension of Chairman.- 
(a) Where any proceedings have been initiated for removal of a Chairman under section 13, or where any criminal proceedings under any law have been started against a Chairman or where on an inquiry made by the Government, he is found to be guilty of misconduct within the meaning of section 13 (1) or is found to be involved in activities detrimental to the interest of the Parishad and in the opinion of the Government the exercise of powers by him as Chairman is either likely to be prejudicial to the interest of the Parishad or undesirable from the point of view of public interest, the Government may, by order in writing, place such Chairman under suspension.
(b) Where a Chairman is placed under suspension under sub-section (a), a representative member nominated by the Government shall discharge the functions of the Chairman until the termination of the proceedings referred to in sub-section (a), or in the event of the Chairman being removed as a result of such proceedings, until a new Chairman is elected and enters upon his office, or until the suspension is
withdrawn. 

(c) No Court shall en-quire into or question the validity of any order made under sub-section (1).

3. Repeal and savings:

(a) The Local Government (Upazila Parishad and Upazila Administration Reorganization) (Amendment) Ordinance, 1987 (Ordinance No.10, 1987) stands herewith repealed. 
(b) Notwithstanding such repeal, all actions done, all measures or proceedings taken under
Ordinance No.LIX amended by the said Ordinance shall be deemed to have been made or taken under Ordinance No.LIX amended by this Act. 
[Published in Bangladesh Gazette, Extraordinary, dated 24th June, 1987] Act No.22 of 1987

An Opinion survey on a upazila parishad:

The main purpose of this study is to focus out the impact on introducing the upazila parishad system at rural society in Bangladesh to provide better service to the mass people through local government.

A questionnaire survey was conducted on the Advisor of the upazila parishad, the members of the upazila parishad i.e elected representatives and at least 9 deputed officials and at least 10 general people like teacher, businessman, day labourer, contractor, beneficiary of social safety net programs, student of higher education and community leader (i.e Imam), etc at study area.

During the study, it was found that 85% of the respondents are satisfied disposing their duties, 58% of them are in favour of the Advisor for his cooperation, 71% of them mentioned some weak points of the upazila parishad, 46% of them told that the quality of service is average. In case of general people it was found that 62% of them were seeking service from the upazila parishad, 62% of them received service, 100% of the recipients were satisfied at the service of the upazila parishad and 50% of them told that the quality of the service of the upazila parishad is good.

To provide better service to the rural people the Government introduced the Upazila Parishad system in Bangladesh. A upazila parishad consists of a chairman, two vice-chairpersons (one of them a woman), chairmen of all union parishads under the upazila concerned, mayors of all municipalities, if there are any, and women members of the reserved seat. The chairman of the upazila parishad will enforce executive power to implement the decisions taken by the parishad. A UNO will serve as the chief executive officer of the upazila and the government will appoint one secretary to the parishad. The government can employ its officer or employee to the parishad for executing general or special duties on specific condition.

Since this is a new system in upazila, our course management feels that it is a timely initiative for entry level civil servants on introduction of upazila parishad. So they have selected the title of the village study “Ongoing activities of Upazila Parishad: an opinion survey”.

To fulfill the study some objectives are selected. The main objectives of this study are as follows:

• familiarize with the Upazila Parishad administrative body, MP, Upazila Chairman, Businessman, Contractor, Local people and their views.

• To asses the views of Upazila Parishad adviser i.e Local MP.

• To asses the ongoing activities of Upazila Parishad and how it is effective for the local government system.

• To get the understanding that how people are benefited after the reinstating of the Upazila Parishad.

• How committees have been formed and how they are working for the welfare of the common people of the respective Upazila.

• people’s view about the Upazila Parishad ?

• give and find the proper knowledge about the ongoing terms “Ongoing activities of Upazila parishad: An opinion Survey”.

We conducted our study at Lohagora upazila under the district of Chittagong. In our study area our target groups (respondents) were categorized into three groups which were:

a) The Advisor of the UZP of the selected upazila who is the member of the parliament of that area.

b) The members of the UZP i.e the elected representatives and deputed officials of that upazila(total respondents 30).

c) The general people which were categorized depending on different types of professions like teacher,businessman,day labour, contractor,beneficiaries of the social safety net programme,student of higher education(graduate level),community leader i.e Imam(total respondents 10,among them 4 respondents must be female).

The collected information from group ‘a’ (from Advisor) & group ‘b’(from elected representatives & deputed official) are common for all the participants of our group but under the group ‘c’(from general people) each participant collected data from different ten peoples.

Data Analysis: We have collected data from three types of respondents like Advisor, elected members and general people. Some information were collected from all types of respondents are incorporated combined for analysis. Example: age distribution,sex etc. Rest of the information are incorporated separately i.e respondents wise for analysis. We represented data in graphs and tabular forms. For analysis and processing we used MS Word & MS Excel software.

Figure 1: Age distribution of the respondents (for all types of respondents)

From the figure 1, we can see that most of our respondents (14) are in between the age of 40-49 years; which indicates that maximum respondents are mature enough to make the opinion to the Upazila Parishad. On the other hand, respondents of 20-29 years and the respondents of 60-69 years are minimum.
 

Figure2: Sex distribution of the respondents(for all types of respondents).

From figure 2, we can see that only 39% women participated in our study, whereas 61% male respondents are found for their opinion. Women are still lagging behind in our country in case of participation and empowerment.

Table 1: Educational background of the respondents:
 

Educational qualification	Elected Members		Deputed officials		General People
	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female
Iliiterate	-	-	-	-	1	-
Class 1-5	-	6	-	-	1	2
Class 6-10	2	2	-	-	1	-
S.S.C	2	3	-	-	1	-
H.S.C/Diploma	3	-	1	-	-	1
Degree	2	1	1	-	1	1
Masters	1	-	7	-	1	-
Total	10	12	9	-	6	4

The table 1 shows that among the elected members 3 male members highly educated but only one female member completed her graduation. Among the deputed officials, female member was not found at the time of our data collection, but among the general people male respondents are more educated than female respondents. In case of education females are still behind.

Figure 3: Main occupation of the respondents

From the figure 3 we observe that most of the person of Lohagora upazila under Chittagong District is businessman, as all the employees are not the residence of this Upazila. Though 14 respondents are service related but all of them are not local people. On the other hand, 12 respondents are businessman who is the permanent residence of Lohagora. Remarkable people are housewife reflects in this figure. As the respondents were selected, so this data can’t reflect the actual information about that Upazila.

Figure 4: Job satisfaction among the 41 respondents

From the figure 4, we can see that majority (80%) of the respondents are satisfied disposing their duties in UZP whereas only 20% of the respondents are not satisfied at the Upazila Parishad. Among this 20% people, mainly general people are not satisfied for not getting the proper service from the Upazila Parishad.

Among the 41 respondents, all of them said that the adviser of the Upazila Parishad cooperate the Upazila Chairman to run the activities properly. Especially at Lohagora Upazila, the coordination between the Chairman and Member of Parliament is very good.

The respondents who are satisfied to working at the upazila level and also the people going to take the service from the Upazila Parishad, their views are-

• There is a scope to serve the people.
• Opportunity to work with govt. officials.
• Cooperation in decision making process.
• There is a scope to work independently.
• Opportunity to serve the people.

On the other hand, the respondents who are not satisfied to working at the upazila level and also the people going to take the service from the Upazila Parishad, their views are-

• No job specification
• No specific rules
• Interference of MP
• People are not getting proper service from the Upazila Parishad
• Shortage of personnel
• Insufficient fund, etc.

Also the general people are satisfied about the activities of Upazila parishad. Because they think that construction of roads, distribution of relief, open discussion with Upazila Chairman, are easily found from the Upazila parishad.

In case of monthly general meeting, all of the respondents said that the meetings are generally held in regularly. Also the people said that there is no quorum problem happened at this Upazila.

In decision making process, if anything differs from each other the decision is made according to the opinion of majority.

Regarding the formation of standing committee, most of the officials said that without the instruction from Government standing committee could not formed. But some general people said that standing committee has been formed-it is the lacks of the some respondents.

Figure 5:Effectiveness of Upazila Parishad in relation to giving service to the people.

Figure 05 reflects that 44% people think that Upazila Parishad are in good condition for giving the service to the people and 34% people think that Upazila Parishad are in average condition for giving the service to the people. On the other hand, only 5% people think that Upazila Parishad is not success in relation to giving the service to the people.

In relation to women empowerment, most of the respondents gave their opinion like including one female member as vice chairman at Upazila Parishad, plays important role against the violence of women, have the activities for female education, participation of women in different social program, etc.

Findings:

• We have collected our data from Lohagora upazilla under Chittagong District. We conducted a telephone interview from the member of parliament of concern station. He noted that the necessity of Upazilla Parishad is very vital. He also praised the local government system. The MP highly emphasized on the clarification of the power and function of the adviser and other member of the Upazilla Parishad. The parishad must consult with him in any development and complex matter. He also advised that the chairman of Upazilla Parishad will have to share all activities with his vice chairmen and other official sitting in the monthly meeting.
  
• We also met with the upazila chairman named Mr. Ziaul Haque Chowdhury. We made an interview with the Upazila Parishad Chairman. He answered that he is very much satisfy to work with the general people. He thinks that he is the guardian of the people of Lohagora Upazila. He also told us that the adviser is not necessary, i.e MP. If he kept, the power conflict will be raised. He also said that the vice chairmen will have to give specific duties and responsibilities under certain rules and regulations. He also urged that he has to have extra facilities as a chairman for doing development activities according to his election manifesto.
• An interview was made with Vice chairman. We also met one vice chairman and their answer was alike. They have not got any place for doing development activities. They do not know about their duties. They do not have any office. They urged car and residential facilities from the government. They will have to give shares to the all development works of the government.
• We took interview of seven UP chairman and eleven reserved seat elected female members, as mayor was absent for not being a pourashava. They gave us mixed opinion. There is a conflict of working between the Union Parishad and the Upazilla Parishad. Under the Upazilla parishad they have to be biased to do the work by the Upazilla Parishad Chairman and vice chairman otherwise they will not be able to do the respective work assigned to them. They want to do the development work just as they do in the past system. Overall they do not like the Upazilla Parishad.
• Nine officials of the Upazilla have been interviewed by us. They also gave us mixed opinion regarding upzilla parishad. They said that Upazilla chairman and the vice chairman are politically motivated they will be ultimately dominated by the political representatives. As a result they will not be able to do the work freely.
• Ten different professional workers in different places of Lohagora Upazilla have been interviewed by US. Many of them said that they do not go to the upazilla parishad for any type of work. So they do not know its value. They said that chairman and vice chairman settle the social dispute only as a result they do not see any extra activities. They demand to have development activities and to create job facilities for the poor people. They also demand to maintain law and order situation in the Upazilla. Moreover, they said that as a poor people they never venture to reach the door of upazilla chairman. But some of the people said that upazilla parishad has done some important for the local people. Upazilla Parishad developed the condition of roads, different schools, etc. They also solve different problems which cannot be solved by the union parishad.

Recommendations:

• Power and functions of the Adviser and other members of the Upazila Parishad should be classified an clearly defined by the rules.
• Law should be modified in such a way that both local MP and Upazila Parishad can work together for the welfare of the people.
• Government Officials and Upazila Parishad activities should be clarified.
• Citizen Charter should be made for the Upazila Parishad.
• The function of the Vice chairmen should be clarified by the laws.
• Upazila Parishad chairman must not give any unlawful pressure to any government official.
  
• Upazila Parishad should be accountable for their works

Conclusion:
According to the constitution and Upazila Parishad Act, the functions of the parishads include dealing with local administrative and establishment issues, ensuring law and order and services related to public welfare, and formulation and implementation of local economic and social development plans. Lawmakers, who were made advisers to the upazila parishads, have also been controlling many local development activities engaging their party people to ensure their stronghold in the areas. Under such circumstances, over 1,400 elected chairmen and vice-chairmen of 481 upazila parishads across the country have not received any remuneration since their elections on January 22 this year, as the government has yet to fix the amount. They are not even getting any fund for running their offices.

Almost all upazila parishads have yet to form a set of departmental standing committees to carry out their tasks properly as well, because of a lack of guidelines

References:

1. BBS, Statistical Pocket Book of Bangladesh, Government of Bangladesh, Dhaka, 1996 

2. Siddiqe, K 1994, Local Government in Bangladesh, 2nd Rev Edition, University Press Ltd.,Dhaka 

3. "Population Census Wing, BBS.". Archived from the original on 2005-03-27.
http://web.archive.org/web/20050327072826/, 
http://www.bangladeshgov.org/mop/ndb/ar pc91_v1/tables04.htm. 
                      Retrieved November 10 2006. 

4. www.cabinet.gov.bd 

5. www.banglapedia.org