Policymakers and the public should engage in a broader national discussion on whether Bangladesh’s administrative hub – or even its capital – should eventually be relocated from central Dhaka, Planning Adviser Dr Wahiduddin Mahmud has said.
He made the remarks while speaking to reporters after a meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec).
The adviser noted that Bangladesh can no longer overlook the reality that central Dhaka is saturated, heavily built up, and increasingly ill-suited to hosting the country’s core administrative functions in the years ahead.
He said the existing Secretariat complex was built during the Pakistan era, when the wider administrative belt stretching from the Secretariat to the Planning Commission, Chandrima Udyan and the Parliament area was designed as the “second capital” of what was then East Pakistan.
Citing examples from around the world, he recalled how cities such as Islamabad, Putrajaya in Malaysia, and newly developed administrative capitals in Indonesia and South Korea were built to ease pressure on the primary metropolis and ensure more efficient public administration.
During the Ecnec meeting, a major proposal to construct a new 21-storey office building at the Secretariat was withheld from approval, reports UNB.
Mahmud suggested that future governments could explore relocating the national administrative headquarters to a new site outside Dhaka, possibly in areas near Gazipur, Shreepur or other suitable locations.
According to him, any decision on the future of the administrative capital must involve citizens, experts, journalists and civil society, as the implications would be national in scale.
Describing the Secretariat area as heavily congested and structurally vulnerable, he said many of the existing office buildings were decades old, in poor condition, and in some cases damaged by recent fires caused by ageing electrical systems and outdated infrastructure.
He said ministers and senior civil servants now work in buildings that often lack proper road access, organised parking or coherent architectural planning.
He clarified that his suggestion was not tied to any immediate relocation effort but reflected the need for strategic, long-term thinking. The Planning Ministry’s own offices, he said, would remain in their current location, but the broader concept of a relocated Secretariat warranted serious public debate.
Responding to reporters, he cited confusion and hesitation within various ministries and implementing agencies as the reason behind the recent pile-up of development projects ahead of the upcoming national election.
He noted that many officials assumed that project approvals would slow once the election schedule was announced. “There was a perception that nothing would move because the election schedule was imminent. But that is entirely incorrect,” he said.
Mahmud emphasised that Ecnec will continue operating as usual and that ongoing development projects will not come to a halt.
“Development projects do not stop. Ecnec does not stop. Only the government becomes a caretaker government during the election period. I was in charge of finance and planning during the first caretaker government in 1996. Even then, Ecnec continued to function normally,” he recalled.
