Electronic payroll a panacea: Speakers

Garment owners have to count close to 25 per cent of production loss caused on a payday for manually giving monthly wages to factory workers.
This loss can be saved keeping the production line in action once cashless electronic payment system comes on line fully, said a top official of a garment house.
"There is hardly any work after lunch on payday for manually distributing wages on the production floor," said Md Zakiur Rahman, chief financial officer of Azim and Son.
It means, cash distribution causes 20-25 per cent production loss in a single day, he stated.
What is more, 25-30 persons have to busy themselves in dishing out wages, Mr Rahman mentioned.
"But after introducing the mobile wage payment system through bKash, we can save $0.4 million as opportunity cost annually," he said.
Mr Rahman was addressing a discussion on 'bKash-Ready-made Garment (RMG) Payroll System' hosted by the mobile payment service provider at a city hotel on Thursday.
Azim and Son director Syed Salman Azim and bKash chief commercial officer Mizanur Rashid, among others, were present there.
Speakers at the event cited both beneficial aspects and challenges too to go ahead with this feature.
They identified infrastructural bottlenecks, mindset and readiness of both factory owners and workers, among other hurdles, towards cashless payment system.
Azim and Son has $32 million export earnings annually.
The company is now paying monthly wages to its staggering 2,600 workers through bKash, said Mr Azim.
The e-payment system has reduced huge cost as at least two days' production gets hampered and cash payment is risky and hazardous, he went on to say.
Meanwhile, Mr Rashid said, "bKash has been providing this service for the garment sector since 2015."
"More than 0.2 million workers of some 170 garment factories are receiving their monthly wages through bKash service till March 2019."
Workers of those units do not find it hard to cash out through 0.02 million bKash agents and 80,000 merchant agents across the country, he said.
Account holders can instantly cash out or purchase their daily commodities, Mr Rashid added.
bKash is gathering pace in garment industry as apparel makers seek to save time, cut costs, raise transparency and empower workers by improving their access to finance, he noted.
Citing a survey done by Better Than Cash Alliance, the official said each worker spends 18 minutes on average per month off the production line to get wages in cash.
A factory having 2,500 workers loses 750 hours of revenue from production per month while paying wages in cash, disclosed Mr Rashid.
The survey also estimated that cost of wage payments in cash per worker is around $0.44 per month.
Mr Rashid said bKash is in talks with banks and insurance companies to introduce savings, insurance and even loan to RMG workers to bring them under inclusive financial system.

munni_fe@yahoo.com