Naim-Ul-Karim
The government has decided to extend a loan of Tk 1.07 billion to the Bangladesh Textile Mills Corporation (BTMC) to help the latter settle the money it owes to the retrenched officials, employees and workers of a number of textile mills under its control.
The BTMC retrenched some 2633 members of its workforce in nine state-owned textile mills under voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) on July 31.
The Ministry of Finance will lend the amount to BTMC at 5.0 per cent annual rate of interest with a repayment period of 20 years.
"The loan will be disbursed soon after a formal deal is signed between the Ministry of Finance and the BTMC," sources said.
An official source in the BTMC said "We sought over Tk1.52 billion for full and final settlement of the dues of the officials, employees and workers of BTMC."
He said the ministry imposed a number of conditions before approving the loan, and asked the BTMC to pay 70 per cent of the total dues to its workforce who opted for VRS.
"The balance 30 per cent of dues will be disbursed after the audit report is sent to the Finance Ministry", the official source further said.
When asked, he said, the finance ministry instructed to complete the payment of dues by next one month.
However, sources said the government is yet to sanction an amount of Tk 70 million to pay the balance dues of 500 employees who were also made redundant in November last year under VRS.
"We had earlier paid 70 per cent of their dues which amounts to about Tk 220 million," he said.
However, sources said BTMC is taking steps to retrench more 300 members of its workforce under VRS soon.
BTMC to get Tk 1.07b govt loan to settle retrenched workers' dues
FE Team | Published: August 22, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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