Setting up industrial parks delayed

Construction of industrial parks outside Dhaka city keeps getting delayed lingering the city dwellers' grapple with pollution and other industrial hazards.

Two industrial parks have missed their deadlines on work completion while the fate of some others is hanging in the balance.

"Not a single industrial park, either for relocation of the existing industrial units from Dhaka city and its outskirts or setting up of new ones, is yet commissioned," said one source.

The government planned to construct the industrial parks for the sectors like information and communication technology (ICT), readymade garment (RMG), active pharmaceutical ingredients (API), tanneries, chemical and light engineering and so on.

The government planned to set up chemical and light engineering parks in Dhaka's Keraniganj and a tannery park at Savar and a garment village and an API park in Munshiganj. The plans were drawn to save Dhaka from pollution caused by industrial waste and avert accidents like the Nimtoli chemical factory-fire.

The plans were also aimed at aligning the indiscriminately established industrial units at different places in Dhaka and on the city outskirts.

The industrial-park plans also envisage providing state-of-the-art facilities to the factories, the products of which are qualitative and competitive both in local and export markets.

A senior official at the Ministry of Industries (MoI) said about the API and tannery parks that though the scheduled timelines on project completion had been missed, the current progress was satisfactory.

"It's a good going now," he said about the progress in construction of the Tannery Park at Hemayetpur of Savar in Dhaka.

The effluent treatment plant (ETP) construction was also progressing "satisfactorily" and utility infrastructure work had already been completed.

Mohammad Abdul Awal, adviser of Bangladesh Finished Leather, Leather Goods, Footwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said the tannery park had been supposed to have been completed in 2006.

Though it had missed the deadline more than six years back, he saw the current progress satisfactory.

He said the ETP construction was going on and already some tanners had started their relocating work and constructing their office and factory buildings.

Construction of the API Park at Baushia in Munshiganj for manufacturing basic pharmaceutical raw materials locally also missed the timeline.

API project director Abdul Baset attributed the delay to a fund crisis. The park-development work had remained halted for some time but it started again, he said.

Dr. Momenul Haq, vice-president of Bangladesh Association of Pharmaceutical Industry, said, "Until officially we get the plots under our ownership, we can say nothing."

Establishing a garment village also in Munshiganj has got the government's nod but the venture awaits the commerce secretary's seal of approval, sources have said.

A Chinese company has been selected by Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) for doing the land development work at the garment-village. The company would fully complete the land development for factories on a turnkey basis and the BGMEA would pay them at a time.

BGMEA president Atiqul Islam said the government had already marked the land in Munshiganj and a Chinese company would purchase it and develop plots. But it was awaiting the ministry's permission.

The government initiatives to set up an ICT village and a chemical and light industry relocation park also proved a far-fetched dream.

For the ICT village a piece of land was selected at Kaliakoir in Gazipur, but its fate still looks uncertain. On the other hand, a case is lying pending with a court over the proposed mini-ICT village at Janata Tower at Karwan Bazar in the city.

Fahim Mashroor, former president of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS), said the ICT village was far from being a reality.

There was no move from the government's side to set up an ICT Park, though in neighbouring countries they developed their particular zones specialised for ICT, like that in Bangalore, India.

The fate of chemical and light engineering industrial parks was also left uncertain, an industry-insider said.

He said though land was selected by the government to set up chemical and light engineering industrial parks in Keraniganj of Dhaka, the project saw no further progress despite a series of meetings held.