B Mirror Desk : The Ministry of Commerce established an election board and an appeal board to choose the executive council of the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS), the nation’s software industry association, for the 2025–2027 term after assigning an administrator to the organization. Chowdhury Samia Yasmin, the Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Commerce, signed an office order on Wednesday providing this information. The election date hasn’t been revealed yet, though.

The office order designates Sufia Akhter, Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Commerce, as the chairperson of the BASIS election board, with Deputy Secretary Sandwip Kumar Sarkar and Assistant Trade Consultant (Deputy Controller) Sirajul Islam serving as the other two members. Joint Secretary Shayla Yasmin will lead the appeal board, accompanied by Deputy Secretaries Majedul Islam and Rezaul Karim.

Despite multiple attempts by Prothom Alo to reach Deputy Secretary Chowdhury Samia Yasmin for comments regarding the formation of the BASIS Election Board and Appeal Board, she did not respond to calls or messages on Thursday afternoon. Similarly, BASIS Administrator Mohammad Mehedi Hasan was unavailable for comment. It is important to note that after the government was overthrown during last year’s student-public uprising, BASIS President Russell T. Ahmed resigned for personal reasons. Subsequently, M. Rashidul Hasan was appointed as the new president during a meeting, but that committee also faced challenges and could not function effectively.

On December 4, the Ministry of Commerce appointed an administrator to BASIS, with the expectation of conducting a fair election within 120 days and transferring responsibilities to the newly elected committee; however, the election has not occurred within the designated timeframe.