Alliance Inspection
Another RMG factory partially closed
Production at Tusuka Trousers Ltd, a nine-storey garment factory located in Gazipur, has recently been closed partially by a government-set review committee as the committee found weakness in the columns of the building. Following a recommendation made by the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, a platform of North American buyers, the review committee comprising representatives from the government, Accord on Fire and Building Safety of EU, Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, BUET and the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association visited the factory on October 2.
The review committee experts found that the typical columns in the building at the ground floor level possessed insufficient capacity and all columns were highly overstressed.
The experts also found undocumented cantilevers on three sides of the building and discrepancies between the as-built drawings and the current state of the factory building.
‘The review panel asked the owner of the factory to evacuate a certain portion adjacent to the central, corner and edge columns due to safety concern,’ Syed Ahmed, inspector general of the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishment, told New Age on Thursday.
He said that about 20 per cent area from the 1st floor to the 9th floor of the building of Tusuka Trousers would remain vacant and the operation in the area might continue after necessary propping.
Syed, also the chairperson of the review committee, said that the factory owner had been asked to start detailed engineering analysis of the building including soil investigation within seven days and to complete the process by November 15.
Around 1,500 employees are working in the factory and none will be displaced from the work despite the production suspension at a portion of the factory building, he said.
According to a source, Alliance found structural faults in the building and sent its findings to the review committee for further decision in the last week of September.
After the Rana Plaza building collapse last year that killed more than 1,100 people, mostly garment workers, North American apparel companies, retailers and brands formed Alliance to improve safety in the Bangladeshi RMG factories.
Alliance completed its preliminary safety inspection of 600 units listed by it between February and July.
A total of 28 factories were referred to the Review Panel by Alliance suggesting evacuation.
Of the 28 factories, five were closed and 11 were partially closed, according to the statistics of the buyers’ group.
-With New Age input
