The Ministry of Textiles and Jute (MoTJ) has sought an allocation of Tk 7.0 billion urgently to avoid existing labour dissatisfaction at the mills under the Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation (BJMC), officials said.
The ministry has also asked for finance support to procure raw jute, they said.
The BJMC recently wrote a letter to the secretary of the MoTJ seeking the allocation urgently. The MoTJ has requested the finance division for allocation of the fund.
The mills under BJMC have been facing severe financial problems. Labourers of the mills did not get their salaries for three weeks. Besides, festival allowance will have to be paid to the workers before the Eid ul-Fitr. So, some Tk 2.0 billion is needed in this connection, sources concerned said.
The labourers are passing their lives in difficulty due to financial crunch. As a result, dissatisfaction have been arisen among the workers. They are observing different programmes like demonstrations, processions and strikes demanding their due salaries, the sources said.
On the other hand, the jute procurement drive of different mills under BJMC is facing a setback due to shortage of necessary funds, they added.
The state entity needs Tk 5.0 billion urgently to continue the jute procurement activity. The procurement movement is stopped now due to lack of required funds.
The state entity may fail to fulfill the procurement target for the current fiscal year as only 33 per cent of the target has been achieved so far, according to the BJMC data.
The corporation is facing a setback mainly because of a severe cash crunch, according to the sources concerned.
Presently, stock of jute with the mills is insufficient. For this, it is not possible to provide products according to the demand of buyers due to lack of jute despite orders, the data mentioned.
The corporation has set a target to procure 2.26 million bales (2.61 million quintals) of raw jute for the fiscal year (FY) 2014-15, according to the BJMC data.
Meanwhile, the jute mills under the BJMC were incurring heavy losses. The performance of the mills was also not satisfactory, a high official of the ministry said.
BJMC buys raw jute for the mills through 182 purchasing centres located in the jute-growing areas of the country, ensuring fair price to the farmers.
Now the organisation is operating 26 mills (including 3 non-jute industries). There are seven mills in Dhaka zone, 10 in Chittagong zone and nine in Khulna zone. BJMC has two zonal offices for supervising and coordinating the activities of regional mills.
Exports of raw jute dropped in July-April period of the current fiscal year (FY) compared to the same period of last FY.
On the other hand, exports of jute and jute products increased in July-April period of the current FY from the previous FY.
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