Plan to set up Para Comando Training Centre in Bandarban

With a view to enhancing professional skill of the Bangladesh army personnel, a plan has been undertaken to set up a Para Comando Training Centre and a Long Firing Range over 9,560 acres of land in Ruma Upazila (Sub district) of Bandarban District. The government has already begun acquiring land for the purpose of constructing a modern army training centre.
The training centre will be set up on a vast land stretching across the Mouzas of Galaingya, Pantola and Sengum in Ruma Upazila of the district, Government officials told the journalists. This will be the largest military training installation in the country. The government took initiative to acquire the land and to construct the training centre two decades ago. But due to various complications there has been delay in the implementation of the government plan.
Military officials concerned with the project said, the selected site in Bandarban is the most suitable and safest for any Para Comando Training and Long Firing Range. The local civil administration and MEA Division of the Army have already carried out a joint land survey in the three Mouzas of Ruma Upazilla.
Sources said, in 1980 a proposal was made to acquire 9,560 acres of land in Sengum, Pantola and Galaingya Mouzas of Ruma Upazilla as part of a plan to upgrade the Ruma Garrison camp to a full fledged cantonment. The survey marked 3,280 acres in Sengum Mouza, 3,800 acres in Pantola and 2,480 acres in Galaingya as suitable for the two projects. Later the Defense Ministry endorsed the plan to construct a Para Comando Training Centre and a Long Firing Range on these lands.
The process of land acquisition, which was put on hold due to various complications immediately after the land surveys, resumed in 1998. In 2003 at the request of Chittagong Hill Tracts Ministry the task of land acquisition started anew and finally on 22 February another survey was completed for the purpose of acquisition.
Based on a report by published in Jugantor, a Bengali daily, on November 03, 2005.

Prepared by Press Section, Publications and Publicity Department, United People's Democratic Front (UPDF), November 18, 2005.