Reintroduction of upazila system and better coordination between government and non-government organisations are also a must to ensure development in the rural areas, they said.

They also observed that active participation of local government bodies can expedite the development process in rural areas.

The Centre on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific (Cirdap) organised the seminar titled 'Revisiting the institutional framework for promoting rural development in Bangladesh' at its auditorium in the city.

LGRD and Cooperatives Minister Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan attended the inaugural session as the chief guest while eminent economist Prof Rehman Sobhan, chairman of the Centre for Policy Dialogue, a civil society think-tank, chaired the plenary session of the seminar.

Cabinet Secretary Dr Saadat Hussain, Rural Development and Cooperatives secretary Hedayetul Islam Chowdhury and Cirdap Director General Dr Durga P Paudyal also spoke as special guests at the inaugural session.

Prof Rehman Sobhan said the entire rural development activities are overseen by the ministries and there is no coordination among the line ministries concerned.

It even appears that there is no functional local government bodies to accelerate the development activities, he added.

He called for a holistic approach to achieving development in agriculture as well as in infrastructure.

The government should develop an integrated institutional framework to address all the problems in rural development, he said.

At the inaugural session, LGRD Minister Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan stressed the need for rethinking the strategies to make the government institutions more effective in order to gear up the rural development.

Cabinet Secretary Dr Saadat Hussain called for better coordination between the government agencies and NGOs in their efforts to ensure rural development. Apart from poverty alleviation activities, the NGOs should focus on other issues such as healthcare services, he added.

Several papers were presented at the plenary session. Abdul Muyeed Chowdhury, executive director of Brac, presented a paper on 'Institutional mechanism for rural development in Bangladesh: Role of NGOs with the special reference of Brac', Dr Momtaz Uddin Ahmed, director of Cirdap presented a study on 'Institutional framework for rural development in Bangladesh' and Dr Abdus Samad Mallick, director general of Bangladesh Rural Development Board, presented a paper on 'Institutional mechanism for rural development in Bangladesh: A case study of BRBD.'

Economist Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman and Dr Qazi Mesbahuddin, member of General Economic Division (GED), Planning Commission took part in an open discussion on the papers.