Further high court hearing on tannery move in Bangladesh
21/03/2012
A proposed move of tanneries from the Hazaribagh district of the Bangladeshi capital to a new site at Savar, 30 kilometres to the west was first mooted in 2003. After years of dispute and delay, the project appeared to have secured final approval in December 2011 when the government announced that it had awarded a contract to build a common effluent treatment plant on the Savar site, the source of a long-running battle between tannery owners and the authorities, to a Chinese contractor, JLEPCL-DCLJV Limited.
However, another of the firms that bid for the contract, VA Tech WABAG from India, had raised an objection to the process, questioning some of the documentation its rival had presented. On January 9, the high court in Dhaka dismissed the objection, but reports now say a further hearing on Mach 4 was necessary to confirm that JLEPCL-DCLJV Limited can now go ahead with the construction project.
Bangladesh's industries minister, Dilip Barua, recently told local media: "As a result [of the March 4 hearing], the long standing difficulty over the relocation of tanneries has come to an end." He added that the government was hopeful the construction of the plant can be completed in 15 months.
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