RMG Workers
Factory owners lack Tk 1 lakh to prepare biometric database
Most of the garment factories that represent the multi-billion dollar export sector have failed to complete biometric database of workers in 10 months due to ‘cash crisis’.
RMG factory owners claimed that they could not arrange the fund required for the process as they were facing huge pressure from global retailers to make their units safer for workers.
Sector people said a factory owner needed only Tk 75,000- Tk 1,75,000 to complete biometric database of the workers of his/her unit.
After the Tazreen Fashions fire in November 2012 that killed 112 garment workers, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association had taken the initiative of preparing biometric database of workers and signed memoranda of understanding with two IT farms — Systech and Tiger IT.
After the Rana Plaza building collapse that killed more than 1,100 people, mostly garment workers, in April last year, the BGMEA in May asked all of its members to prepare biometric database of their workers within six month.
Only 300 factories have so far been registered with the trade body to do the job in the last ten months although around 4,500 factories are BGMEA members, said leaders of the trade body.
The database is being prepared with the support of Tiger IT and Systech Digital Ltd by taking finger prints of workers and the process will cost a factory owner from around Tk 75,000 to Tk 1.75 lakh based on their manpower.
A BGMEA source said that a total of 280 factories had so far been registered with the trade body for preparing biometric database and the work of preparing uniformed ID of 1.5 lakh workers of 250 factories is progressing in full swing.
Preparation of biometric database at a good number of small factories in the Dhaka zone (which are running with 300-400 workers) are more difficult as such factories have no IT section and IT experts, the source said.
At the inaugural function of a training programme for the mid-level management of factories, IT personnel and human resource professionals at the BGMEA headquarters on May 20 last year, BGMEA president Atiqul Islam had said that the association had been trying to prepare a central database of workers for a long time and it was now mandatory for all of the garment owners.
The BGMEA president also had instructed that the factories at Ashulia would have to prepare the database of their workers by August 30 last year and had said if the factories failed to do so, the trade body would not provide them any service.
‘Factory owners have been passing through a tough time as they are yet to recover the damages caused by the political turmoil in the recent months. So, many of them have failed to provide cash for the preparation of biometric database,’ the BGMEA vice-president Shahidullah Azim told New Age on Saturday.
Minhajul Islam, chairman of the utilisation declaration automation committee of the BGMEA, said, ‘We had a plan to complete the task by six months but it will take more than one year.’
The work of database preparation is progressing slowly as the business is not running well and factory owners remain under severe pressure from the EU Accord and the North American Alliance to ensure compliance in the factories, he said.
The garment sector exported goods worth around $ 21.5 billion in the last fiscal year while the earning would exceed $24 billion this fiscal year.
Minhajul said that though the factories at Ashulia were asked to complete the workers’ database by August 30 last year, a total of 212 factories have so far been registered with the BGMEA to do the job in the zone.
A total of 300 factories have been registered for preparing workers database, he said.
To ensure biometric database in the readymade garment sector the BGMEA has taken an initiative to arrange the payment of database fee in four instalments for the factory owners, Minhajul added.
-With New Age input
