State Minister for Youth and Sports Aminul Haque has taken direct personal action to break the years-long deadlock over the construction of a government house for Ritu Porna Chakma, the star of Bangladesh’s women’s football team and one of the most decorated players in the country’s football history. Despite being on an official visit to Turkey at the time, Aminul considered the matter serious enough to dispatch a representative team to Rangamati to investigate why the promised home has still not been built.
Ritu Porna Chakma is the driving force of the Bangladesh women’s football team. It was her brace against Myanmar that helped Bangladesh qualify for the main round of the Asian Cup for the first time in the country’s history. Her goal against Nepal in the 2024 SAFF Championship final secured back-to-back regional titles for Bangladesh. She is, by any measure, one of Bangladesh’s greatest sporting heroines.
Yet despite her achievements on the pitch, Ritu Porna and her family continue to live in a dilapidated house in Rangamati, waiting for a government promise that has been made and broken repeatedly over several years.
The representative team, which included the minister’s press secretary SM Ashraf and a National Sports Council official, visited Ritu Porna’s home, spoke with her family and held a meeting with the local district administration to understand why construction has still not begun.
Rangamati Deputy Commissioner Nazma Ashrafi confirmed the frustrating reality. “Although the district administration has made all preparations to build the house, the entire process has stalled due to some complications related to land settlement,” she said.
In March 2025, 12 decimals of government-owned khas land were officially allocated to Ritu Porna and she visited the plot herself. But approval from the Ministry of Chittagong Hill Tracts Affairs, which is required to complete the land transfer, has never materialised. According to one source familiar with the situation, the district administration has acted in good faith throughout, and the failure to deliver rests entirely with the indifference of the Hill Tracts Ministry.
A meeting held on 25 August last year explored an alternative arrangement, proposing that the ministry purchase 10 decimals of land using funds from the Hill Tracts Ministry allocation and build the house there. That plan was also never implemented.
It is worth noting that the previous committee of the Bangladesh Cricket Board had also committed to building a house for Ritu Porna. That too came to nothing due to the same land complications.
The representative team will now submit a detailed report of all findings and obstacles to the sports minister, who will use it as the basis for taking decisive action to finally deliver on the long-standing promise.
