According to the new rule issued on 10 November 2005 by the Health Department, the local students of the CHT (Bandarban, Khagrachhari and Rangamati) are required to have their citizenship certificates issued by the CHT Affairs Ministry to get admitted to the country's government medical colleges. But earlier, this work of issuing citizenship certificates used to be done by the three hill districts' deputy commissioners (DC) or the three circle chiefs. This was a difficult job to get done for the students and their poor guardians from almost inaccessible frontier areas of the CHT. Now, surely, this new resolution will make their lives even more difficult.

Before enacting the new rule, the Health Department did not even feel it necessary to consult with the respective deputy commissioners and the circle chiefs, let alone the common people of the CHT. Bhomang Circle Chief King Aung Sue Prue Chowdhury expressed his deep dissatisfaction at this move to your Bandarban correspondent (The Daily Star, 26 November, 2005), being informed by neither the Health Department nor the govt.

It should be noted that a student of plain land does not need to go to any ministry to collect citizenship certificate; then why should this discriminatory statute be introduced in the CHT? Will the Health Department make it clear?

I hope the Health Department will reconsider its decision and will take the initiative to increase the number of seats reserved in govt. medical colleges for the ethnic minority students from the CHT.