DHAKA, Feb 26, 2018 (BSS) – The cabinet today gave its final approval to the draft of “The Textile Law, 2018” considering importance of huge apparel exports from Bangladesh.
The approval was given at the weekly cabinet meeting held at the Prime Minister’s Office with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
Briefing reporters at Bangladesh Secretariat, Cabinet Secretary Mohammad Shafiul Alam said the aim of the newly proposed law is to maintain quality of textile products as Bangladesh is earning huge foreign currency from this sector.
About 83 percent of the country’s total export earnings came from the textile sector last year, he said, adding that apparel products worth over 29.26 billion dollars were exported in the last fiscal.
As per Section 6 of the draft law, Alam said, the government could provide incentive for any textile industry to achieve the goal of enacting the law.
The cabinet secretary said a directorate would be constituted with the Director General as its head to be appointed by the government, while necessary manpower will also be recruited for the organisation.
“The DG will work as the registrar of the organisation,” he added. Alam said an officer will be given responsibility to examine quality and standard of various elements including paint and other chemicals used in the textile products.
In this regard, he said the government can establish international standard laboratory to accomplish such activities.
About provision of punishment, the cabinet secretary said registration of any company could be suspended or even cancelled for giving wrong or false information while taking the registration.
He said if needed, the government can determine the registration system of the buying houses, giving registration certificate, suspension of registration, its renewal and other matters by issuing gazette notification.
The cabinet secretary said the responsible person could inspect any textile industry in the system fixed by rules whether the industry is run as per the condition of registration. The person also could send the information he received to the government with recommendations, he said.
Alam said any aggrieved person could lodge an appeal with the government within 30 days.
The cabinet secretary said the government or the directorate could hand over any power as per the conditions to be fixed in the order to any person, official and or organisation.
The cabinet secretary said today’s cabinet meeting also gave final approval to the draft of “The Children (Amendment) Law, 2018” keeping provisions for setting up one or more Children Tribunals in district headquarters.
He said the draft law was formulated amending “The Children Act, 2013” to further widen its avenue so that the process of trial could not be delayed.
According to the amended draft law, he said, the existing Women & Children Repression Prevention Tribunals will act as Children Tribunals which will try offences committed by the children.
The cabinet also gave nod to the draft of “The Bangladesh Employees Welfare Board (Amendment) Law, 2018” incorporating a provision to term all officials and employees of the republic as “employees”.
Alam said the draft law has been formulated amending the existing law of 2004, and some changes have been made regarding power of the board and various deposits including group insurance premium.
As per the draft law, any employee will deposit one percent of the basic pay to the Benevolent Fund which will be maximum 150 taka instead of 50 taka in the existing law, while the Group Insurance Premium will be 0.70 percent which will be maximum Tk 100 instead of Tk 40.
An employee will get Tk 40 thousand instead of Tk 20 thousand as one-time general medical grant, while the amount for burial of any employee will be Tk 10 thousand instead of five thousand.
Besides, an employee will also get two lakh taka instead of one lakh taka as one-time grant of joint insurance.
The cabinet also okayed the draft of “The National Sports Council Law, 2018” to make the existing law more time befitting.
Alam said the cabinet endorsed the draft of a joint venture agreement for formation of a joint venture company under the joint initiative of the Bangladesh Power Development Board and the China Huadian Hong Kong Company Ltd for setting up a 1320-MW coal-fired power plant on 50:50 partnership.
It also okayed the memorandum of association and the articles of association of the company, he said.