Deadline for relocation expires on Sept 30
The taskforce for ensuring relocation of inflammable and risky chemical factories and warehouses from Old Dhaka is yet to initiate any move till Monday to oversee the progress of relocating process the deadline for which would expire on September 30.
The industries ministry, responsible to deal with the matter, only on Thursday issued a directive to the taskforce to monitor the relocation process of 20 dangerous chemicals warehouses although the decision was taken more than a month ago on August 17, soon after the June 3 Nimtali fire that claimed 124 lives in Old Dhaka.
The taskforce did not make any move till Thursday on the plea of not receiving any written directive and the members of the body headed by additional secretary Mohammad Iqbal Khan Chowdhury, who was on leave, seemed to know little about the matter.
‘No one replaced the position of the head of the taskforce and a meeting will be held after he (Iqbal Khan Chowdhury) joins the office to decide the next course of action regarding the relocation,’ said Kaikobad Hossain, deputy secretary of the home affairs ministry.
Meanwhile, industries minister Dilip Barua expressed his firm stand of not extending the deadline any further. ‘The deadline for relocation will not be extended anymore,’ he told New Age on Monday.
‘Many of the warehouses have already shifted the 20 “dangerous flammable” chemicals from the residential neighbourhoods in Old Dhaka,’ he said, hoping that they would gradually shift the others.
Business houses should show their responsibility to the society and people by relocating all the risky chemicals from the area, he added.
Regarding the relocation of other dangerous and flammable chemicals, Bangladesh Chamber of Industries president Shahedul Islam Helal on Monday told New Age that the government in the next step could make another list of 20 to 25 most dangerous chemicals and set a timeline to shift them from the residential areas.
The Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry senior vice president M Shahjahan Khan said the associations would not press the government for further extension of the deadline as they did not get any such request from the chemical traders of Old Town.
He, however, said the relocation would not bring any solution if the traders move the risky chemicals to other residential areas in the city or elsewhere.
‘The government should have a clear-cut policy incorporating where and how the chemicals will be relocated,’ he said.
