The cabinet yesterday approved a proposal for formation of the Bangladesh Communication Satellite Company (BCSC) Limited in a bid to smoothly operate the country's first-ever Bangabandhu Satellite-1.

The approval came at the weekly cabinet meeting at Secretariat with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.

Briefing reporters about the outcome of the meeting, Cabinet Secretary Mohammad Shafiul Alam said Bangladesh is going to join the Satellite club very soon as the process for launching the first-ever satellite “Bangabandhu Satellite-1” has almost been completed.

“The satellite will be launched into the space very soon, and to operate it, a decision to form a company has been made,” he said.

The company will be formed with an authorised capital of Tk 5,000 crore and it will have Tk 500 crore shares with Tk 10 price for each share.

There will be an 11-member committee to run the company, while post and telecommunications secretary and the managing director of the BCSC Ltd will act as the chairman and the member secretary of the company.

Besides, the cabinet gave final approval to the draft of “The Seeds Law 2017” to make the existing law more time befitting.

According to the new draft law, a 25-member National Seed Board would be constituted with Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture as its chairman, while director general (seed wing) under the Ministry of Agriculture would be its member secretary.

About the function of the board, Shafiul Alam said it will mainly focus on the control of seed quality. There will be a Seed Certification Agency that will give permission and licence for seed dealership.

Besides, there will be a post of seed inspector who will visit the markets to inspect seed quality and dealership licence.

According to the draft law, any obstacle created by any dealer or seed user to accomplishing the lawful responsibility of seed inspector would be considered as punishable offence.

For such offence, he said, the dealer or person concerned would be sentenced to three months imprisonment or be fined Tk 50,000 or both the punishment.