BJMC won\\\'t be turned into holding co: Minister

The Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation (BJMC) will not be turned into a holding company, State Minister for Textiles and Jute Mirza Azam has said, reports bdnews24.com.

"There have been talks about turning the BJMC into a holding company. We learnt of discontent over the matter in various places. The BJMC will not be transformed into a holding company," he told reporters in Dhaka Thursday.

The minister offered the clarification, quashing a finance ministry proposal, at the end of a session devoted to the textiles and jute ministry at of DCs' (deputy commissioner) conference in Dhaka. The finance ministry had given such a proposal,  Mr Azam said. "We won't accept it."

The state minister said the government had reopened four closed textiles mills and plans to reopen others. The BJMC had been constituted in 1972 with 77 jute mills to bring production and export of the golden fibre into an integrated system. At present, there are 26 jute mills under this autonomous body.

BJMC manufactures products in these mills by buying jute from farmers through 182 procurement centres across Bangladesh.

A total of 82,000 employees and staff are involved in the entire system.  Jute mill workers in many parts of the country have been agitating since June after the finance ministry proposed making the BJMC a holding company.

State minister Azam sought assistance from the DCs to retrieve hundreds of acres of land owned by the BJMC, Bangladesh Jute Corporation and Bangladesh Textile Mills Corporation.