Cabinet approves tougher pesticide law

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DHAKA, Oct 30, 2017 (BSS) – The Cabinet today approved a proposed pesticide law suggesting tougher punitive actions against storing and marketing of adulterated bug killers meant for crop protection.

Officials said the cabinet in its weekly meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair endorsed the “Balai Nashak (pesticide) Act, 2017” that suggested higher amount of fines and longer jail terms marketing, sale, package or storage of adulterated pesticides.

Briefing reporters at Bangladesh Secretariat after the meeting, Cabinet Secretary Md Shafiul Alam said the proposed law also suggested tougher punitive actions for false labeling and tagging or advertisement of any tainted pesticide.

“In such cases one could be fined as high as Tk 100,000 and in default could be handed down one year jail term for committing such offences for the first time,” he said.

But, he said, someone found to be repeating the identical offence would have to pay double the amount, Tk 200,000, and languish in jail for two years.

The cabinet secretary said pesticide producers would be fined an amount as high as Tk 50,000 for offering their products to dealers with false declaration that those were produced maintaining the standard prescribed in the law.

One might be fined at least Taka 75,000 or maximum one lakh, or may serve at least one year and highest two years in jail for unauthorized use of a registration number.

Alam said the law suggested identical punishment for compromising pesticide quality, preventing the inspector from discharging duties and furnishing false information during registration.

The draft law authorized mobile courts to execute the Act but no court would accept lawsuit against any producer without written complain of the concerned inspector, conservator of concerned government official. “The new act will replace the Pesticide Ordinance, 1971 and cover broader areas of controlling insecticides including insects, fungus, bacteria, worm, virus, weed, rat and other pest control,” the cabinet secretary said.

The law has been framed in Bangla with necessary revision of the previous ordinance.

According to the law the government would fix the maximum retail price (MRP) of the pesticides, highest commission for whole and retail sellers through notification.

At the beginning of the cabinet meeting, the cabinet secretary said, the Cabinet Division presented this year’s quarterly report (July-September) before the cabinet on the execution of the cabinet decisions.

According to the report, the cabinet in its nine meetings in the third quarter of this year took 80 decisions, of which 59 were implemented and 21 in the process of execution. During the quarter, six acts were passed in parliament and nine memorandums of understanding (MoUs) were signed.

In the corresponding period of 2016, the cabinet adopted 56 decisions in eight meetings, of which 36 were implemented and 20 decisions were under execution. In that quarter the government signed four MoUs while parliament framed ten legislations, the report said.

Earlier, state minister for ICT Junaid Ahmed Palak handed over two awards to the Prime Minister which Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) had received recently from foreign organizations for success in the information and communication sector.

The first award titled ‘ASOCIO 2017 ICT Education Award’ was given by Asian-Oceanian Computing Organization (ASOCIO) to Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) in a meeting on September 12, 2017 in Taipei, Taiwan.

The second one titled ‘2017 eAsia Award’ (silver award) was given by Asia pacific Council for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (AFACT) for successful implementation of the National ICT Infra Network for Bangladesh Government (Info-Govt) Project by the BCC.

The cabinet also adopted an obituary reference at the death of Sheela Islam, wife of Minister for Public Administration Syed Ashraful Islam. Sheela Islam died on October 23, 2017 in London. The cabinet expressed profound shock and grief at her death and conveyed sympathy to the bereaved family members, the cabinet secretary said.