The government is yet to take any initiative to infuse fresh life into hundreds of industrial estates under the BSCIC, thus putting investors in dire straits, insiders said.
Nearly 1,000 industrial plots of Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC) have been lying vacant for a long despite high demand for those among both local and foreign investors due mainly to bottlenecks prevailing in the industrial estates, official data showed.
Insufficient gas and power supply, poor infrastructure and inappropriate site selection for setting up industrial park have been cited as the major cause of failure to attract investors, they added.
Of the vacant plots, around 96 industrial parks are in Dhaka division, 205 in Chittagong division, 78 in Rajshahi division and 613 in Khulna division.
"The decision of setting up at least one industrial park in every district was wrong as basic requirement for investment is not available everywhere in the country for which some of our industrial plots have long been remaining vacant," a high official of BSCIC told the FE Tuesday preferring anonymity.
"Besides, the politically-biased decision has also forced the authority to set up industrial parks in such areas where success will never come," he added.
However, some investors at the industrial states said they could not go for full production due to shortage of gas and power.
Project manager of a chemicals producing company in the BSCIC industrial park at Tongi, said his company got permission for 15mw of power connection for its production.
"But we had to remain satisfied with only 5mw. The same thing happened in case of gas supply also. Moreover, no BSCIC official wants to care about our requests for repairing of roads inside the industrial area," he added.
"Though Tongi is a prominent industrial hub in Bangladesh, the industrialists here are struggling due to bad condition of the roads," he added.
"We have made repeated complaints to the authorities concerned, but got no result so far. Foreign buyers have become frustrated for the poor state of the roads."
Ahsan Habib, another investor of Chauddagram BSCIC industrial area, said that he is in trouble with the investment as no business environment persists within the area.
"I was expecting a congenial business environment before taking allotment in this industrial park, but immediately after my investment I have experienced that no officials of BSCIC care about addressing our woes," he added.
"Now I can neither pull out my investment nor can continue business smoothly," Mr Habib added.
However, a general manager of planning and development (P&D) division said his office has taken a set of initiatives to remove the bottlenecks and to sell the vacant plots to the investors.
"We have made a set of proposals to the government including development of infrastructure both in and outside our industrial parks and to ensure sufficient supply of gas and power to make all such parks fully operational," he told the FE.
"Some of our industrial parks were set up ignoring the feasibility study report of our experts. Plots of those estates are now lying idle but we are trying hard to overcome the difficulties in the areas and also to attract investment by negotiating with different investors," the general manager added.
He, however, expressed his hope said that once the proposals are approved, the situation would be changed within a short period of time and investors would go for investment in those areas.
According to BSCIC, most of the failed industrial parks had been established in remote corners of the country which are yet to be developed for industrialisation. The areas are Rangamati, Khagrachhari, Barisal, Bhola, Swarupkathi and Panchagar.
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