The government is set to take tough action against the tanners who will be unable to relocate their factories by December this year, and start production from March next year, a top Tannery Estate project official said Tuesday.
"Tanners may even face shutdown if they do not relocate their units by December and start production in March next year," Tannery Estate project director (PD) Sirajul Haider said while speaking as chief guest at a seminar in the city.
The Bangladesh Tannery Association (BTA) and Leather Sector Business Promotion Council jointly organised the seminar titled 'The importance of tannery relocation and exploring new markets for leather products'.
Institute of Leather Engineering and Technology lecturer Nur Mohammad and Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) deputy director Md. Jakir Hossain presented two papers at the seminar, which was presided over by BTA chairman Shaheen Ahmed.
The project director said the tanners still had the government, the court, buyers and the people of Bangladesh beside them. If they did not relocate, nobody would be with them and the industry would be closed.
He informed that some 149 tanneries had submitted their building plans to the estate authorities. Of them, 147 have been approved.
Recalling the European Union (EU) warning, Sirajul Haider said Bangladesh would lose the European market if they (tanners) did not start environmentally compliant production by 2014.
He said the government had built the water treatment plant two years ago, the construction of the effluent treatment plant was also going on in full swing, but if the tanners did not go to the authorities they could not examine the plants as to whether those worked properly or not.