Not airport but hospital
Government's decision to build another International Airport after Bangabandhu does not seem to be a well-thought out scheme as a pauper country like Bangladesh cannot have the luxury of having another airport at the colossal expense of thousands of crores of taka when the existing one can well serve the purpose with some extension and renovation. The area of Arial Beel chosen for the site yields both food and fish and besides, millions of people will be affected in various ways.
Instead, the government could build a 500 bed medical college hospital in Mirpur area of Dhaka City where nearly one-fourth of city's population lives. All the big government hospitals, except Shahid Suhrawardi Hospital, are located in old part of the city. Suhrawardi hospital can barely cater to the needs of the patients because of lack of both manpower and facilities. The seriously ill or injured patients cannot get the services from DMCH/SSMCH because of their location, being far off from Mirpur. The cost of building a hospital will be a fraction of the cost of proposed airport; the hospital could be named after Bangabandhu and that would be a great service to the people done by the AL government.
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