The Cabinet on Monday gave final nod to a draft of “The Child Daycare Centre Act, 2021” keeping a provision of maximum 10 years in jail in case of failure to ensure proper security and safety to the children.
The approval came from a regular weekly meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair, joining it from her official Ganabhaban residence in the capital.
“A provision was included in the proposed law to ensure maximum 10 years imprisonment along with fine for acts creating threat to the lives of children, negligence in duty or ruthless behavior with them,” Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam told a news briefing after the meeting.
He said the provision of punishment has given a strong message that no carelessness and brutality towards the children will be tolerated.
“If any child is lost from a daycare centre due to negligence, maximum 10 years imprisonment and Taka five lakh fine will have to be faced,” he continued
The proposed law has been brought mainly to support the growing number of working women.
The cabinet secretary said that government, semi-government, non-government , statutory and autonomous organisations can set up and run child daycare centres after getting registration from the concerned authorities.
After passage of the law, none can run any daycare centre without getting registered, he said, adding that it will be an offense to run any such centre without registration.
The proposed law has suggested holding at least one meeting with the service takers in every three months, he said.The cabinet secretary said that the Prime Minister asked all concerned for reducing the age limit from 55 to 40 years to get registered for Covid-19 vaccination – aiming to expand and accelerate the Covid-19 inoculation campaign for commoners.
He said the premier asked to make the registration process easier. The Prime Minister also proposed to use Union Digital Centres for the registration purpose, he said.
The premier called upon all to follow the health guideline properly which includes wearing facemasks and washing hands.
Anwarul said that the cabinet directed the ministries to enact fresh laws by June next replacing the ordinances promulgated during the 1975 (August)-1978 and 1982-1986 (September) regimes in accordance with a judgment of the High Court passed in 2013.
In this connection, he said, “Among the ordinances, most of the necessary ones have already been replaced with new laws. Now there are only 59 laws, which need to be replaced.”
The cabinet secretary said that the meeting also gave the final approval to the draft of “The Bankers’ Book Evidence Bill 2021” replacing the old Bankers’ Book Evidence Act 1891.
In accordance with the proposed law, the digitally recorded documents will be treated as bankers’ book evidence, he added.
Anwarul added that the cabinet approved a proposal to stop the production of the drug “Ketoprofen” in an effort to save the critically-endangered vultures.
Noting that now there are only 260 vultures in the country, according to the count of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, where as the total number of vultures were 50,000 during the 1970s, the cabinet secretary said the ministry placed the proposal saying that the supply of Ketoprofen drug need to be stopped to save the vultures. “In the proposal, they have suggested ‘Meloxicam’ as an alternative to ‘Ketoprofen’ since the former is available in the market and its side-effects are very light,” Anwarul added.
The meeting also ratified an agreement signed between Bangladesh and Morocco for avoidance of double taxation and prevention of fiscal evasion. The agreement was signed on February 28, 2018 in Rabat, the capital city of Morocco.
