The government is going to construct 114 luxury flats for senior secretaries, secretaries and grade-1 officials working in the civil bureaucracy. The flats would be built in three blocks of 20-storey buildings in Minto Road area in the capital, at a cost of Tk 274 crore after demolishing Tenament House, where some senior secretaries now stay, public works ministry sources said.  The ground floors would have modern facilities like swimming pool, salon, library, super-quality lifts and departmental stores. A senior secretary will get a 3,490 square feet flat, a secretary a 3,470 square feet flat and a grade-1 official a 3,455 square feet flat, according to the sources.
The secretary of the public works ministry, Md Shahidullah Khandaker, told The Independent that the PWD will construct the flats for top bureaucrats. Instructions in this regard have been given by the Prime Minister recently, he said. “We will start work on the three high-rise buildings this month and these would be completed by 2018. We cannot provide proper residential facilities to all secretaries as there is a shortage of government housing facilities. After constructing the three big buildings, we will be able to allocate the flats by 2018 to top bureaucrats,” he added.
He said a 10-storied building would be constructed at Minto Road, having 4,200 square feet flats for ministers.
Khandaker also said that they have started constructing a number of 20-storied buildings at Motijheel, Malibagh, Azimpur and Mirpur areas after demolishing old residential buildings of the government colony to provide accommodation for government employees. At present, only 8 per cent of government employees, totalling 16 lakh, get residential facilities. “Our target is to raise it to 40 per cent of government employees by 2018,” the PWD secretary said.
He also said they have started constructing 10-storied district administrative buildings in all district headquarters to accommodate all government offices under one roof so as to make things easy for the people.