Dhaka: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday asked the deputy commissioners to adopt newer ways of work shedding the old mindset and thus help the country achieve its desired middle-income status by 2021.

‘Though the district administration was established during the colonial period, everything now has changed by the time, we’ll have to run the country, develop and advance it as an independent country, this is our main focus, we’ll have to step forward changing all the old perceptions,’ said the prime minister.

The Prime Minister was speaking at the inaugural session of a three-day Deputy Commissioners’ Conference 2015 at her office.

Sheikh Hasina said the DCs must not confine themselves to their day-to-day routine works as they will have to think what new development programmes they could take for their respective districts so that those could contribute to the development of their areas.

‘You (DCs) must look for newer ways, techniques and of course take good care of the development programmes,’ she said.

Hasina said her government main aim is to build a hunger- and poverty-free and happy and prosperous Bangladesh.

‘To attain that goal you must come out of old mindset of being only government officials. You’ll have to devote more to the service of the nation,’ she said.