Bangladesh tannery move far from settled ten years on
14/05/2013
At a meeting with the country’s finance minister, Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, on May 12, a delegation representing the Bangladesh Finished Leather, Leather Goods & Footwear Association and the Bangladesh Tanners Association asked the government to allocate a budget of more than $120 million to construct a common effluent treatment plant at the new dedicated site at Savar.
They also asked for 12-year government loans to help manufacturers pay their expenses for the move. The minister said the government would look into the matter.
It is now ten years since the government in Bangladesh first said it would address water quality issues in the River Buriganga, which flows through the capital, by building new facilities for leather manufacturers in Savar. It took until 2005 to get the project off the ground.
There was a change of government in 2006 and planned elections were postponed for years with a caretaker government able to do very little to push the initiative on.
A new government took office in 2009 and the plan was resurrected. By 2010, the new government was warning that tanneries would be forced to close if they failed to move to Savar, which is 30 kilometres west of the capital. The tanners won a series of extensions to the deadline at the country’s high court, with the most recent deadline given as June 2013.
However, it’s clear from the meeting on May 12 that original questions over costs associated with the move and the construction of the common effluent treatment plant have still to be settled.
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