A station called the Bituli Livestock Quarantine was set up three years ago to test cattle and other animals coming in from the border area. Because it has no staff, it has still not opened. As a result, people are missing out on its benefits and the government is losing a large amount of revenue.

The Bituli Livestock Quarantine Station is in Biraintala village, Fultala union, Juri upazila, Moulvibazar. An academic and dormitory building was built on 20 decimals of land at a cost of crores of taka, with an animal shed beside it.

A visit found 51 items of equipment for testing animals lying unused inside the building. Many had been unpacked, and after three years without use they are covered in dust. There are no officials or staff; only one outsourced security guard looks after the place.

The animal shed is also idle. The chains and cages inside have rusted, and the rooms are dirty and unkempt.

According to the Juri upazila livestock office, in the 2013-14 financial year the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock took up a project to build 24 facilities across the country, called the Animal Disease Prevention and Control Project. Quarantine stations were planned at 18 land ports, two seaports and four airports, with three officers and nine staff recommended for each.

The main aim of the stations was to test animals and animal products, and animal feed, imported across the border before allowing them into the country. After the building and animal shed were built in 2013-14, the Bituli station was handed over to the Juri upazila livestock office in 2017-18, and the necessary testing equipment was bought that same year.

Test kits for five diseases were bought for the laboratory: anthrax, Newcastle disease (Ranikhet), salmonellosis, brucellosis and tuberculosis. Also bought were a laboratory incubator, a weighing machine, a diesel generator, a colony counter, a deep freezer, a refrigerator, a post-mortem set, an electrical stabiliser, a water heater, a thermo flask, a digital camera, a computer, and a bed, clothes rack and wardrobe for the officer, among 51 items in all.

Besides Bituli in Moulvibazar, there are four more quarantine stations in Sylhet, at Sutarkandi, Zakiganj, Tamabil and Sylhet MAG Osmani Airport. Reportedly none of them has opened either.

Moktar Mia, the outsourced security guard at the Bituli station, told Jagonews24 he had looked after the building for three years. The upazila livestock officer checks on it from time to time, but nobody has come to work there so far, and the equipment is gradually being ruined because it is not used.

The 20 decimals of land for the station were donated by Badsha Mia of Biraintala village. Voicing his frustration, he told Jagonews24 he could not understand why he had donated the land. He had seen no activity there in three years; the main gate was always locked and no officials or staff were ever seen. He called on the government to open the station without delay.

Fultala union parishad (UP) chairman Masuk Ahmed said: "We still do not understand what this institution does, because it has never opened. Since our area is on the border, we think the station is very important. If it opens and animals coming from neighbouring India are tested before being allowed into the country, we can be protected from various diseases."

He said that unless it opened, people would not get the benefits for which the government built it, and eventually the building would become unusable and the equipment would be ruined.

Asked about this, Dr Hasin Ahmed Chowdhury, Juri upazila livestock officer (additional charge), told Jagonews24 the facility had not yet been fully opened because no staff had yet been appointed to run its laboratory, which was undermining the purpose for which it was built.

He said that if it could be opened soon, the government would earn a large amount of revenue and people would benefit too.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.