Bangladesh tannery relocation faces further delay
06/09/2010
The High Court of Bangladesh announced on February 28 that tanneries in Hazaribagh, the traditional centre of the tanning industry in the country, would have an extra six months to complete a forced move to a new industrial site at Savar, 30 kilometres west of Dhaka.
In June 2009, the government told tannery operators that they had to move away from Hazaribagh to the new site by February 28. Tannery owners and the Bangladesh Tanners Association had lobbied for a two-year extension, but as recently as the end of January, government ministers were insisting that the industry would have to meet the February 28 deadline and there would be no concessions at all.
The dispute over the new site at Savar centres on the project’s common effluent treatment plant, which is still not complete. The tanning industry and the government have been arguing over who should pay for the common effluent treatment plant since 2003. Discussions stalled when the country had only a caretaker government between January 2007 and December 2008.
Dhaka-based business newspaper The Financial Express has reported that a review meeting took place in the run-up to the August deadline between the industry minister and tannery owners and leathergoods producers, but the meeting failed to break the deadlock. Tannery owners have blamed “bureaucratic tangles” for the delay in moving. Having appeared to accept that the government will not pay for the common effluent treatment plant at Savar, they are now asking for around 8% of the costs associated with the move as a government grant. The government is showing no sign of agreeing to this.
Production appears to be continuing at Hazaribagh, but the pressure on the government to address environmental questions associated with leather production there is growing.
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