Rana Plaza Donor’s Fund
430 receive Tk 50,000 each in first phase
Four hundred and thirty workers and families of deceased workers of New Wave Bottoms, one of the five clothing factories housed in Rana Plaza that collapsed on April 24, 2013, on Friday received Tk 50,000 each in compensation from the Donor’s Trust Fund in the first phase. The multi-stakeholder Rana Plaza compensation coordination committee on March decided to disburse compensation money to 581 workers of New Wave Bottoms in the first phase but 151 workers or families are yet to receive the compensation money in the absence of proper documentation.
Roy Ramesh Chandra, secretary general of the IndustriAll Bangladesh Council, said that they would receive documents of the workers April 11 and make the payment accordingly.
The first batch of beneficiaries (NWB workers) received the first instalment of compensation directly from Primark, a British clothing retailer.
According to the decision of the Rana Plaza compensation coordination committee, 3,639 workers who worked in the five factories housed in the building will get Tk 50,000 each from the Trust Fund by April 15.
The committee, set up with international and Bangladeshi representations from the government, industry and trade unions to deal with the compensation issues, is assigned to complete the payment under the Rana Plaza Donors Trust Fund, coordinated by the International Labour Organisation.
The fund was set up at the
beginning of February, with an
initial target of $10 million, estimated to be the amount needed to pay the first instalments to all potential claimants.
The fund now has $8 million while Primark would give $1 million to the fund.
About $40 million is needed to pay 3,000 workers or families of workers who were killed in the building collapse.
At least 1,133 workers were killed and more than 2,500 injured in the incident.
In keeping with the committee decision, the second batch of beneficiaries will receive the first instalment of compensation through the Trust Fund after the processing of their claims by April 15.
All eligible beneficiaries will receive an advance payment of Tk 50,000 before April 24, which will be deducted from the total award due to each beneficiary at the time of processing.
-With New Age input
