The Rana Plaza Coordination Committee, a body of representatives of global trade unions, retailers, government and factory owners, on Tuesday formally started distributing compensation from a fund of donors’ among families of deceased, injured workers and survivors of the building collapse. The number of total beneficiaries from the fund, which was created to accumulate compensation mainly from the retailers, is 3,059.
State minister for labour Md Mujibul Haque inaugurated the compensation distribution programme at his office by giving Tk 50,000 each from the Donors’ Trust Fund to the family members of a deceased worker and an injured employee.
International Labour Organisation deputy director general Gilbert Fossoun Houngbo, labour secretary Mikail Shipar and ILO country director Srinivasa Reddy, among others, attended the programme.
The coordination committee in March decided that a total of 3,639 workers, who worked at the five garment factories housed in the collapsed Rana Plaza building at Savar, or their family would get Tk 50,000 each from the Rana Plaza Donors’ Trust Fund.
As per the decision of the coordination committee, the payment for 580 workers of New Wave Bottoms, one of the five clothing factories housed in Rana Plaza, had been made by Primark, a British retailer.
Donors’ Trust Fund on Tuesday gave compensation to injured worker Jesmin Akter and Shamsunnahar, mother of deceased worker Shilpi.
The fund worth approximately Tk 14.20 crore was made available for payment through mobile banking service bKash.
IndustriALL Bangladesh Council secretary general Roy Ramesh Chandra told New Age that the programme was launched by giving compensation to an injured worker and relative of a deceased worker but all of the workers and the families of deceased employees would receive money through bKash account by today (Wednesday).
The amount of Tk 50,000 will be considered as advance payment for the injured and deceased workers and the amount will be deducted from the total amount of compensation which will be fixed as per the ILO convention, he said.
The donor trust fund was set up at the beginning of February, with an initial target of $40 million, estimated to be the amount needed to pay over 3,000 workers or families of workers who were killed in the building collapse.
Most of the brands which had procured clothes from the factories housed in Rana Plaza are yet to contribute to the trust fund, which now stands at $15 million.
Eight-storey Rana Plaza at Savar, which housed five apparel factories and a market, collapsed on April 24, 2013, leaving more than 1,100 people, mostly apparel workers, killed and over 1,500 injured.
-With New Age input
