The jute and textile ministry has requested the home ministry to make violation of the Mandatory Jute Packaging Act-2010 as a punishable offence under the mobile court law, senior officials told New Age. They said that the ministry would start enforcing the Mandatory Jute Packaging Act from January. The law requires all government and private organizations to use jute bags and sacks in packaging products, they said.
The Mandatory Jute Packaging Act was enacted in October 2010 and the rules under the law were framed in June 2013 to facilitate the enforcement of the law for boosting domestic use of jute bags instead of polythene or polypropylene.
Proper enforcement would immediately increase the domestic use of jute and jute goods by 50 per cent and ensure fair price of jute to growers, said officials.
The jute and textile ministry, in a recent circular, asked the millers and wholesalers only to use jute bags and sacks while marketing rice from December.
The food department, became the lone 100 per cent compliant of the circular using only jute sacks in packing paddy, rice and wheat, said officials.
The circular made it mandatory to package from the current year at least 50 per cent of fertilizers for marketing, both imported and produced in the country.
The circular requires Bangladesh Jute Mill Corporation and the Bangladesh Jute Mill Association to ensure supply of enough jute sacks for packaging 50 per cent of paddy, rice, wheat and fertilizers procured by the government.
The circular requires packaging at least 50 per cent of sugar in laminated hessian bags by mills under the Sugar and Food Industries Corporation as well as those in the private sector.
For maize, the requirement is packaging only in jute sacks.
The ministry of jute and textiles in a recent letter requested the home ministry to make it a punishable offence under the mobile court law not to use jute bags in packaging these items, joint secretary Nasima Begum told New Age.
She said that the home ministry sent the draft papers in this regard to the law ministry for vetting.
Jute department director Mohammed Kefayet Ullah told New Age that government was trying to increase the domestic use.
Neighboring India made it mandatory use jute bags since 1987.
Bangladesh enacted the Mandatory Jute Packaging Act in 2010, he said.
-With New Age input
