The government has changed the English spellings of five districts to match them with their Bangla pronunciations.

The approval came after the cabinet division placed a proposal yesterday at a meeting of National Implementation Committee for Administrative Reforms/ Reorganisation (NICAR) with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.

The spellings have been changed from Chittagong to Chattogram, Barisal to Barishal, Jessore to Jashore, and Bogra to Bogura.

Cabinet Division Secretary (Coordination and Planning) N M Ziaul Alam, briefed the outcome of the meeting at the secretariat.

In 2000, the name of Nawabganj was changed to Chapainawabganj and Dacca was changed to Dhaka during HM Ershad's regime.

Yesterday, the government also recognised Mymensingh as the country's 12th city corporation. Mymensingh City Corporation will have an area of 91.35 square kilometres with a population of 4, 18,058.

In 2015, Mymensingh was declared the eighth administrative division of the country. The division consists of four districts—Mymensingh, Jamalpur, Sherpur and Netrokona.

Ziaul Alam said the new City Corporation will consist of Mymensingh municipality, two unions and parts of six unions from the 13 unions of Mymensingh Sadar upazila.

He said the Mymensingh City Corporation has been constituted following the fulfillment of all eight criteria for forming a city corporation.

Sources said the government is planning to form eight more city corporations.

The cabinet meeting also approved a proposal of the Election Commission for declaring March 01 as the 'National Voters' Day' and the inclusion of the day in the 'Kha' serial of the circular of the Cabinet Division in this regard to observe the day every year.

Bangladesh will observe the day to spread awareness about democracy, election and voting rights amongst people, particularly youths, said Ziaul Alam.

He also said the government has selected the month of March for observing the National Voters' Day, considering the importance of the month in the nation's history.

The cabinet also approved, in principle, the draft of “Sylhet Medical University Bill, 2018" to set up a medical university in Sylhet Division.

Ziaul Alam said the proposed university will be a full-fledged medical one and it will be established as part of the government's plan to set up medical universities in each division in phases. “All the medical and dental colleges and nursing institutes under Sylhet Division will be affiliated with Sylhet Medical University,” he added.

The cabinet also endorsed a proposal to allow Petrobangla to cut 902 trees in the reserve forest at Moheshkhali Upazila in Cox's Bazar district.

Petrobangla will construct a road on 11.618 acres of land there for its gas exploration purposes.

The permission to cut trees has been given on condition of planting trees five times higher than the 902 trees after its gas exploration, and nurturing the planted trees for five years.

The meeting sent back the drafts of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), Articles of Association and Joint venture and Shareholders' agreement which were placed before the cabinet to constitute 'Bangladesh Energy Port Ltd', a public and private partnership company in Banskhali of Chittagong.

The cabinet also formed a 10-member committee, headed by the principal coordinator on SDG Affairs in the PMO, for further scrutinising of the documents and submission of report to any cabinet meeting next time, Ziaul Alam added.