Govt to set up textile village on lands of closed cotton mill

The government has decided to set up a "textile village" on 33 acres land of a state owned cotton mill, which has been closed for 15 years.
A cabinet committee on economic affairs yesterday took the decision to set up the textile village on the lands of Chittaranjan Cotton Mills Ltd at Godnail in Narayanganj.
The new entity will be named Chittaranjan Textile Palli.
The textile and jute ministry in a proposal said 22 industrial plots will be created on the lands, of which 11 will be for spinning, knitting and readymade garments.
Dyeing and finishing units will be set up on 10 plots adjacent to the river Shitalakkha and one will be a commercial plot.
The ministry has primarily estimated the price of the lands at Tk 159 crore but it may bring more money if the industrial plots are sold through competitive bidding, the proposal said.
Chittaranjan Cotton Mills was nationalised in 1972 and since then had been running under Bangladesh Textile Mills Corporation (BTMC).
But the mill was shut down in 1997 in the face of huge losses.
An official of the BTMC said, after remaining closed for about nine years, the mill was given to the Privatisation Commission in 2007 for denationalisation.
The official said the Privatisation Commission could not denationalise the mill and the textile and jute ministry took it back from the Commission early this year.
After the yesterday's cabinet meeting, an official at the Cabinet Division told The Daily Star that many local and foreign investors are failing to make investment in the country due to a lack of lands.
The official also said there are more state owned industries which are neither being properly run nor being denationalised.
He said the lands can be made available to the private sector.
The ministry's proposal said, if the 33 acres of land are sold to one entrepreneur, the possibility of making it financially profitable by the entrepreneur is slim.
But if the land is divided into small plots, it will create more employment and the textile village can be made environment friendly by setting up a central effluent treatment plant and a separate power plant for the village, the ministry said.