RMG owners asked to clear wages before Eid

The commerce ministry yesterday asked garment factory owners to pay workers' salaries and other allowances in due time to avert any kind of major untoward incident before the Eid festival.
The ministry also asked the owners not to sack any worker before Eid because such a step would usher unrest into the sector, said a senior official of the ministry, seeking anonymity.
After the meeting, the official said every year, a section of garment factories is unable to pay the workers in time and the workers bring out processions and start vandalism before Eid.
Commerce Minister GM Quader also spoke to factory owners at the 20th meeting of the Social Compliance Forum for Readymade Garment sector at the ministry office in Dhaka.
The minister said the government has undertaken a plan to set up the much-talked about 'Garment Industrial Park' under direct ownership instead of public-private partnership (PPP).
The government has not implemented any major project under PPP yet. “So, setting up such a big industrial park under PPP might not be possible,” the official said. As a result, the government has decided to develop the park and will sell the plots to entrepreneurs, he added.
Earlier, the industries ministry took up a project to set up the industrial park at Bausia of Gazaria upazila under the Munshiganj district at a cost of Tk 438 crore.
The objective of setting up the industrial park is to provide one stop services to apparel makers and reduce pressure on Dhaka.