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Work for development
of resorts and tourist facilities in Saint Martin's
Island, the only coral-bearing island in Bangladesh, is
going on at a snail's pace, giving rise to concern among
local people. Located on the southern-most tip of the
country, the island has immense prospect to become a
special tourist zone. Entrepreneurs and nature-loving
people have already either purchased or leased around
three-fourths of its total land to develop tourist
facilities, sources said. The local people, who are
mainly farmers and fishermen, thought development of
tourism would create employment opportunities for them,
but they have become frustrated as work for construction
of resorts or other facilities has not started on most
plots. The offshore island, located some 32 km away from
Teknaf Sadar Upazila, has an area of around 416 acres
for about 5,500 inhabitants. Most of the poor islanders
living hand-to-mouth sold or leased out some 300 acres
of cultivable land to the developers at an apparent
lucrative price ranging up to Tk 6 lakh per Kani (40
decimals), sources said. Among the purchasers are
ex-ministers, MPs, secretaries and industrialists and
businessmen. Although a few modern hotels and motels
have been constructed for tourism purposes, they are
hardly of any help to local people as far as the
employment is concerned. More than 60 per cent of around
100 acres of land the locals are at present left with is
being used for coconut cultivation. The poor people now
fear that they would have to face hard times in near
future when they even might have to starve. The
islanders also alleged that they are being neglected in
various ways. Apart from natural calamities such as
tidal upsurge and cyclones and attacks of diseases, they
are deprived of utility services, they said. They remain
almost detached from the outside world for about three
months during the monsoon when service of all the four
ships, the only mode of transport, remains suspended.
Their fishing trawlers also lie idle as the sea becomes
wild and stormy at that time, leaving them captive in
their home, said the islanders while talking to this
correspondent. There are only one high school, one
government primary school, one non-government primary
school, six moktabs and three madrasas in the island,
said Amir Hossain, an inhabitant. Some 10 per cent of
the inhabitants are literate. Only three people have
completed graduation, six higher secondary and 10
secondary levels of education. Only one girl has passed
the SSC examination. There are over one hundred
tubewells in the island, but 85 of them are out of
order, they said.The healthcare situation is in terrible
shape. The islanders got a ten-bed hospital only two
years ago. But the poor people are deprived of all sorts
of treatment due to shortage of doctors and medicines.
The poor people depend on only drug stores, which also
sell date-expired medicine, they alleged.
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