According to the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA), approximately 47 per cent of factories are vulnerable to industrial mishaps and have not yet put the required corrective actions in place for safety by the December 2023 deadline.
In May of last year, BIDA identified 106 risk factories, of which 17 were deemed to be high-risk and were directed to put in place a corrective action plan (CAP) within three months.
By year’s end, the 89 factories that remained and posed less of a risk were instructed to guarantee a safer working environment.
Abhijit Chowdhury, national coordinator of the factory inspection initiative said “4 out of 17 high-risk factories have already closed and among them 1 was relocated from Naryanganj to Manikganj,”
Furthermore, he noted that three more high-risk firms are about to make the required modifications, while nine already have them completed.
According to Chowdhury, the 106 factories received individual letters outlining the CAP from the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments requesting that they implement fire safety measures and adhere to other requirements.
“When we started monitoring the factories in September last year, we told them to implement the CAP and prepare a progress report in this regard by December,” he added
Bida officials visited 5,206 factories in Dhaka, Chattogram, Narayanganj, and Gazipur during the initiative’s first phase, which ran from November 2021 to March 2022.
Bida examined 5,001 industries in 17 districts, including Manikganj, Munshiganj, Mymensingh, Narsingdi, Kishoreganj, Khulna, and Jashore, during the second phase, which took place in April and June of last year.
This time, according to Chowdhury, BIDA will concentrate on regions with high factory intensities that require a lot of labor, as well as those where industries handle plastic, chemicals, and food.
He said that 58 teams from throughout the nation will begin inspecting 15 districts with a high concentration of industry as part of the third phase of BIDA.
