Historical
Background
To create
consciousness among people about health and sanitation District Public
Relations Office was established under Public Health Division in British
India in 1924. This department started functioning at Writers' Building
in Calcutta in the name of Publicity Department under the supervision
of the then Information Department. After partition of 1947 Public Relation
Directorate was created with the combination of Field Publicity and
News and Film Section under Ministry of Information and Broadcasting
of the then government of Pakistan. A new section was also opened in
the name of Folksong section. Renowned personalities of literature and
music era viz. Poet Jasim Uddin , singer Abbasuddin, Abdul Alim, Sohrab
Hossain, Abdul Latif, Bederuddin worked in this department .
In 1968 network
of Public Relations Department was expanded and a post of District Public
Relation Officer and a Sub-Divisional Public Relation Officer was created
for every district and sub-division respectively. Considering the importance
of motivating people of grass root level and connecting them in development
activities, Bangladesh Council, Board of National Reconstruction - BNR
and Women's section was combined together and Department of Mass Communication
was created in 1972 in post liberation Bangladesh. Through reconstruction
of Department of Mass Communication in post liberation Bangladesh the
important responsibility to establish a bridge of bondage between government
and people has been vested upon this department since inception. With
a view to integrate people with government policies and development
programmes, District Information Offices have been conducting various
meetings, seminars, discussion meetings and documentary film shows.
At present multifarious publicity activities like drama, cultural function,
press meeting, children's fair, community meeting, open space meeting
path publicity, courtyard meeting, distribution of booklets etc. have
been added to existing programmes.
On the backdrop
of transforming former sub-divisions into districts Department of Mass
Communication has been reorganized and Sub-Divisional Public Relation
Offices have been converted to District Information Offices. Currently
publicity and motivational activities of this department are being conducted
through 64 District Information Offices and 4 Upazilla Information Offices.