Common standard for factory inspection set

Monira Munni | Published: November 17, 2013 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2025 06:01:00

A minimum common standard for inspection of garment factories across the country was finalised, though there was still room for incorporating more criteria in it as desired by the buyers, sources said Saturday.
By following the standard the government already started factory inspection Friday on a trial basis in cooperation with the International Labour Organisation (ILO), they added.
Thirty teams of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) comprising experts from other universities are inspecting the garment factories, except those which will be inspected by the Alliance and the Accord.
However, finalisation of the common standard came after a meeting held among officials and experts from the National Tripartite Committee, the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, and the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety at a city hotel on November 07 last.
During the meeting the three parties also agreed to fine-tune the measures, especially those relating to the fire and power safety.
About 25 technical personnel, especially engineers from the three parties, sat on November 7 and 8 to discuss details aiming to set the common standard mainly to avoid any overlap in inspection and save resources, the sources said.
"A minimum common standard to assess the fire and building safety has been finalised," ILO Country Director Srinivas Reddy told the FE Saturday.
The three parties identified certain areas of inspection that needed to be modified, he said.
Both the Accord and the Alliance had gone through the manual prepared by a BUET team in this connection and also shared their own thoughts on the standard, he said adding: "they are ready to go for minor modifications."
The ILO is playing the role of a facilitator for all the three parties-the Accord which is a platform of more than 100 buyers and retailers mainly from the European Union, the Alliance which is another coalition of North America, and the National Tripartite Committee (NTC) which is implementing the National Action Plan.
The initiatives, aimed at ensuring workplace safety and compliance with other safety standards in the readymade garment (RMG), came following the tragedies that happened one after another in the apparel sector, especially the Tazreen Fashions fire and the Rana Plaza collapse that killed more than 1200 garment workers.
The meeting was very constructive as the technical experts met to discuss details before setting the common standard to avert any overlap during the inspection, Mr Reddy said.
"More or less, all the issues have already been settled except one or two as those are not so big issues," BUET Professor Mehedi A Ansari said.
Replying to a question, Mr Reddy termed the minimum standard 'good' and said a buyer could add more to the set of criteria of it, if they wanted.
"But it would be based on negotiations, particularly between the buyers and the factory owners," he added.
Echoing the ILO country director, another BUET professor, Maksud Helali, who is also involved with the standard-setting and inspection programme, said they assessed fire and power safety measures Friday in some factories located at Mirpur in the city on an experimental basis.
Under the pilot programme, they are expected to inspect about 200 factories.
Labour Secretary Mikail Shipar said the number would increase gradually to 1,500 and expected that the government's inspection programme would be completed in six to eight months.
IndustriAll Bangladesh Council general secretary Roy Ramesh Chandra said: "All the measures have been taken for improvement of the working condition in factories and the Accord is aligned with the minimum standard considering the country's perspective."
The Accord is expected to assess safety standards of about 1,600 garment units starting in November while about 600 factories will be inspected by the Alliance.