Ctg Customs House: New social distancing measures in place as Covid-19 cases soar
With cases of coronavirus infection increasing among staffers, officials at Chattogram Customs House have started a token system to limit the number of visitors on the premises from Sunday.
Till date, 24 employees of the customs house have contracted the novel coronavirus, while one officer has died from it. There are 7,000 employees working at the customs house. Of them, more than 3,000 work as clearing and forwarding (C&F) agents -- who are assigned to deliver goods from customs on behalf of importers and exporters -- visit the place every day.
Following the new token system, C&F agents will not need to crowd in front of officials during assessment of bill of entry for releasing their goods.
As per the system, there will be a token above the bill of entry with the bill of entry number, date, C&F agent's name, and phone number written on it. The documents will be received with the serial number in a specific counter and the customs officials will deliver the documents after assessing them following a serial.
Customs Commissioner Fakhrul Alam told The Daily Star, "This system has been introduced to maintain social distancing so C&F agents will not have to be on premises anymore after submitting documents."
"Before the token system, we took several measures but failed to maintain social distancing. It is quite impossible due to the huge number of service recipients coming here every day," he said.
Altaf Hossain, general secretary of C&F Agents' Association, said the new system has reduced the risk of being infected with coronavirus, although it takes more time for assessment. Along with customs officials, many C&F workers have also been infected due to negligence in social distancing, he said.
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