Central effluent treatment plants in all EPZs planned
Sunday, 16 March 2008
M Azizur Rahman
The government has planned to set up the long-awaited central effluent treatment plants in all the Export Processing Zones (EPZs) by next 18 months to stop indiscriminate dumping of toxic and environmentally hazardous industrial wastes, official sources said.
"We are now seeking proposals to install these plants under private-public partnerships to ensure that the wastes from the EPZs do not pollute the rivers, seas or the adjacent localities," executive chairman of Bangladesh Export Processing Zone Authority (BEPZA) Ashraf Abdullah Yussuf told the FE Saturday.
He said despite having effluent treatment plants (ETPs) individually in the required industrial units inside EPZ areas, BEPZA took the decision to set up ETPs and treat wastes centrally in each of the country's eight EPZs.
Government revenues from these treatment plants would be worth several hundred million taka annually and the construction costs would be around $ 70 million, the BEPZ executive chairman added.
Setting up of effluent treatment plants centrally in the EPZ areas is a global practice and most of the developed countries have central ETPs to treat industrial wastes, Yussuf added.
The government decided to set up these effluent treatment plants following repeated demands from the environmentalists and sufferers to treat industrial wastes before dumping.
Though setting up of central ETPs were in the master plan of the BEPZA, the implementation process remained stalled for about last two and a half decades, it was alleged.
Investment in the total 264 industrial units in eight EPZs in the first half of the current fiscal were around $130 million, while total export from these zones were $1.08 billion, BEPZA officials said.
BEPZA profit in the last fiscal was recorded at around Tk 890 million, more than double compared to that in the previous year of around Tk 350 million.
More than 200,000 people have so far been employed in the existing eight EPZs - in Dhaka, Chittagong, Mongla, Comilla, Ishwardi, Uttara, Adamjee and Karnaphuli.
Investors from South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, USA, Ukm Japan, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Malaysia, Australia, Denmark, Canada, Ireland, France, Panama, Italy, Sweden, Netherlands, Singapore, India and Bangladesh have so far invested the EPZs lured by attractive investment offers from the government.
A good number of investors from different other countries have recently shown interests to invest in the EPZs, made exclusively for manufacturing export-oriented items.
To accommodate mounting demands from both local and foreign investors the BEPZA has already decided to set up two more EPZs at Munshiganj and Feni within this year.
The government has planned to set up the long-awaited central effluent treatment plants in all the Export Processing Zones (EPZs) by next 18 months to stop indiscriminate dumping of toxic and environmentally hazardous industrial wastes, official sources said.
"We are now seeking proposals to install these plants under private-public partnerships to ensure that the wastes from the EPZs do not pollute the rivers, seas or the adjacent localities," executive chairman of Bangladesh Export Processing Zone Authority (BEPZA) Ashraf Abdullah Yussuf told the FE Saturday.
He said despite having effluent treatment plants (ETPs) individually in the required industrial units inside EPZ areas, BEPZA took the decision to set up ETPs and treat wastes centrally in each of the country's eight EPZs.
Government revenues from these treatment plants would be worth several hundred million taka annually and the construction costs would be around $ 70 million, the BEPZ executive chairman added.
Setting up of effluent treatment plants centrally in the EPZ areas is a global practice and most of the developed countries have central ETPs to treat industrial wastes, Yussuf added.
The government decided to set up these effluent treatment plants following repeated demands from the environmentalists and sufferers to treat industrial wastes before dumping.
Though setting up of central ETPs were in the master plan of the BEPZA, the implementation process remained stalled for about last two and a half decades, it was alleged.
Investment in the total 264 industrial units in eight EPZs in the first half of the current fiscal were around $130 million, while total export from these zones were $1.08 billion, BEPZA officials said.
BEPZA profit in the last fiscal was recorded at around Tk 890 million, more than double compared to that in the previous year of around Tk 350 million.
More than 200,000 people have so far been employed in the existing eight EPZs - in Dhaka, Chittagong, Mongla, Comilla, Ishwardi, Uttara, Adamjee and Karnaphuli.
Investors from South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, USA, Ukm Japan, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Malaysia, Australia, Denmark, Canada, Ireland, France, Panama, Italy, Sweden, Netherlands, Singapore, India and Bangladesh have so far invested the EPZs lured by attractive investment offers from the government.
A good number of investors from different other countries have recently shown interests to invest in the EPZs, made exclusively for manufacturing export-oriented items.
To accommodate mounting demands from both local and foreign investors the BEPZA has already decided to set up two more EPZs at Munshiganj and Feni within this year.