Bangladesh Government has introduced a digitalised monitoring system to check the safety and compliance level in the country’s apparel industry. Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishment (DIFE), a wing of Bangladesh Government under the Ministry of Labour and Employment, has undertaken the initiative.
DIFE Inspector General Md Shamsuzzaman Bhuiyan told Apparel Resources that the entire software is almost ready and will be launched formally sometime in mid-January, 2018.
International Labour Organization (ILO) is providing the necessary financial and technical assistance to help improve safety and security of workers employed at different factories.
In terms of how the digitalised system would work, the inspectors of DIFE would scrutinise individual factories under a set of check-listed categories and store in a central database.
DIFE Inspector General Bhuiyan said the digitalised process would make the entire factory compliance monitoring faster, transparent and more accountable.
“Since businesses don’t have experience in the digital process, I think there should be a pilot inspection system before the official launch,” said Faruque Hassan, Senior Vice President at Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA).
Bangladesh’s apparel manufacturers are confident that they would achieve full-factory compliance by 2018; thereby, driving out the need for third-party compliance-monitoring entities like Alliance and Accord.
