Staff Reporter :
Tannery industry owners will file an appeal with Supreme Court against the High Court Order that asked them to pay Tk 50,000 as compensation per day for damaging the environment in city’s Hazaribagh area.
According to the order, the owners of 154 tanneries will have to deposit the money with the state exchequer from the date of receiving copies of the HC order until relocation of their factories to Savar Tannery Industrial Estate from Hazaribagh.
The HC passed the order upon a petition filed by Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh.
“We will file an appeal with the Supreme Court against the HC order,” Shaheen Ahmed, President of Bangladesh Tanners Association (BTA), told The New Nation on Friday.
The appeal will be filed after getting the HC order, he added.
Shaheen Ahmed said: It is not possible to shift all the tanneries to Savar immediately. We need at least six more months for the purpose.
“A lot of works have to be done before shifting the tanneries to Savar. So, we need the time to complete the relocation,” he said.
General Secretary of BTA Sakhawat Ullah on Friday said, “We will lodge an appeal with Supreme Court soon seeking stay on the order.”
Echoing the same view with BTA President, Sakhawat Ullah said, “We’ll need at least 5-6 months more to shift the tanneries completely.”
“It’ll be possible to shift only 50 to 60 tanneries out of 155 to the Savar Tannery Industrial Estate within July, and the remaining others by December,” he said.
The tanners had missed more than a dozen deadlines for shifting their factories to Savar over the last one decade. The latest deadline for tannery relocation set by the government expired on March 31 this year.
“Tanners have missed the deadline because they are yet to complete construction of their factory buildings,” said Sakhawat Ullah.
He, however, said that tanners will not waste any time to relocate their factories to Savar once they completed construction of factory buildings there.
Sources said, some 21,000 cubic metres of untreated toxic waste are released every day from the Hazaribagh tanneries into the Buriganga River, posing a serious threat to environment as well as human and animal health.
To mitigate the risk, the government earlier initiated the process to shift tanneries from the city’s Hazaribagh area to Savar setting up a special zone for tannery industry. Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC), a state-run agency is implementing the tannery estate project, for 152 industrial units in Savar. Of those, 148 units are now under-construction, according to BSCIC officials.
Tannery industry owners will file an appeal with Supreme Court against the High Court Order that asked them to pay Tk 50,000 as compensation per day for damaging the environment in city’s Hazaribagh area.
According to the order, the owners of 154 tanneries will have to deposit the money with the state exchequer from the date of receiving copies of the HC order until relocation of their factories to Savar Tannery Industrial Estate from Hazaribagh.
The HC passed the order upon a petition filed by Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh.
“We will file an appeal with the Supreme Court against the HC order,” Shaheen Ahmed, President of Bangladesh Tanners Association (BTA), told The New Nation on Friday.
The appeal will be filed after getting the HC order, he added.
Shaheen Ahmed said: It is not possible to shift all the tanneries to Savar immediately. We need at least six more months for the purpose.
“A lot of works have to be done before shifting the tanneries to Savar. So, we need the time to complete the relocation,” he said.
General Secretary of BTA Sakhawat Ullah on Friday said, “We will lodge an appeal with Supreme Court soon seeking stay on the order.”
Echoing the same view with BTA President, Sakhawat Ullah said, “We’ll need at least 5-6 months more to shift the tanneries completely.”
“It’ll be possible to shift only 50 to 60 tanneries out of 155 to the Savar Tannery Industrial Estate within July, and the remaining others by December,” he said.
The tanners had missed more than a dozen deadlines for shifting their factories to Savar over the last one decade. The latest deadline for tannery relocation set by the government expired on March 31 this year.
“Tanners have missed the deadline because they are yet to complete construction of their factory buildings,” said Sakhawat Ullah.
He, however, said that tanners will not waste any time to relocate their factories to Savar once they completed construction of factory buildings there.
Sources said, some 21,000 cubic metres of untreated toxic waste are released every day from the Hazaribagh tanneries into the Buriganga River, posing a serious threat to environment as well as human and animal health.
To mitigate the risk, the government earlier initiated the process to shift tanneries from the city’s Hazaribagh area to Savar setting up a special zone for tannery industry. Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC), a state-run agency is implementing the tannery estate project, for 152 industrial units in Savar. Of those, 148 units are now under-construction, according to BSCIC officials.
