Breakthrough in Bangladesh
01/07/2013
Media in Bangladesh have said that the government agreed at the end of June to make a compensation payment totalling more than $30 million available for the estimated 155 affected tanneries to share. Reports quoted finance ministry sources as saying the government will also fund a new common effluent treatment plant at Savar, with an investment of more than $100 million.
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. Compensation packages and funding for the common effluent treatment plant are the long-standing points of contention.
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