Ten more garment units — six in Dhaka and four in Chittagong — have so far been shut on safety ground, said a leader of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.
Earlier, the BGMEA had shut eight garment units in Dhaka on the same ground.
After the collapse of Rana Plaza at Savar on April 24 which killed 1,127 people, most of them garment workers, the government and the BGMEA formed separate committees to find out risky buildings that house RMG units.
A core committee comprising of experts of BUET and RAJUK and a technical team of the BGMEA have already started to sort out risky buildings.
BGMEA vice-president Shahidullah Azim told New Age that they had got a list of 147 factories that were operating in risky buildings.
‘Out of the 147 units, the technical team of BUET and BGMEA has so far inspected 110 factories in Dhaka region. The team found 14 factory buildings risky.’
Shahidullah said the team recommended shutting the14 factories housed in risky buildings and asked the owners of the factories to shift their units to other buildings.
The factories shut in Dhaka are World Victory Garments. AG’s Apparels, Fashions, Trade Sweater Factory, NK Sweaters and Mohammadi Design.
Nassa Fashions, Bay Pacific Enterprise, New World Apparels, Flower Fashions, SAS Fashion Wear, HB Garments, Topkind Apparel and SA Rahman Sweater Factory were shut before.
Nasiruddin Ahmed Chowdhury, another BGMEA vice-president, said that a total of four garment factories had been shut in Chittagong on safety ground.
He said that the joint inspection team comprising of the representatives of Chittagong Development Authority and BGMEA had so far examined about 70 factories but no building was found risky.
The garment factories shut in Chittagong are Dress Well, Stitch Tone, Yearn Apparel and Faint Garments.
After the Savar tragedy, the government formed a committee, headed by jute and textiles minister Abdul Latif Siddiqui.
The members of the committee are supposed to visit all the garment factories across the country.
Another committee has been formed to inspect the structural design and loading capacity of the RMG factories across the country.
Headed by the chairman of RAJUK, the committee has representatives from BGMEA, Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association and BUET.
The cabinet committee on readymade garment industry on Wednesday said it had so far shut 18 apparel factories, mostly in Dhaka, on safety ground after the April 24 Rana Plaza collapse.
Earlier, the cabinet committee on readymade garment industry had shut 16 apparel factories in Dhaka and two in Chittagong on safety ground after the Rana Plaza collapse.
On May 9, 11 out of 16 factories in Dhaka had been given permission to resume their production as the factory owners had collected risk-free certificates from the expert engineers who inspected the buildings.
-With New Age input
