About 100 Hazaribagh tannery owners have expressed their intent to layoff factories following the apex court decision to shutdown the units, as they’d have to continue paying the salaries of the workers and staff. Meanwhile, leaders of Bangladesh Tannery Association (BTA) has decided to file a writ petition with the Supreme Court seeking time to shift their factories from the capital’s Hazaribagh are to Savar tannery village. The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice SK Sinha on Sunday passed an order upholding a High Court order to shutdown Hazaribagh tannery immediately. “About 100 tannery owners demanded to declare layoff of their factory units. They sought permission from the BTA leaders—but we are yet to take any decision in this regard,” General Secretary of BTA Md Shakhawat Ullah told The Independent yesterday. Most of the factory owners have fear over the apex court order as they won’t be able to pay the salaries of their employees, he said, adding that they are also fearing that buyer may also cancel their orders. “We have already consulted with our lawyer. We will seek some more time, like the BGMEA, with the court to relocate our factories smoothly,” the BTA general secretary said. Meanwhile, the Director General of the Department of Environment (DoE) Raisul Islam Mandol visited the newly constructed tannery village at Savar yesterday. The DoE will hold a meeting on Thursday with different stakeholders like police, gas, WASA and power to implement the court order, he said. “We will discuss overall situation and how to implement the court order smoothly. We will disconnect all the utility services from the factories,” Additional Director General of DoE Sarwar Imtiaz Hashmi told this correspondent. A total of 112 Hazaribagh tanneries out of 155 are yet to relocate to the newly established Savar tannery village despite the expiry of the deadline on February 28, the eighth set by the government. The Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC) has allocated 205 plots to Savar tanneries, while the government has already given Tk. 250 crore to 155 tannery owners to relocate. What’s more, the central effluent treatment plant (CETP) is already in place there, except for two modules. Earlier, on October 16, 2016, the government had said the December deadline was the final one. But the government failed to make the tannery owners move from Hazaribagh within the time-frames, set and re-set a number of times. On January 10, 2016, Industries Minister Amir Hossain Amu had asked tannery owners to shift their units within 72 hours and directed the authorities to serve legal notices. Later, however, the authorities extended the deadline to April 3 and then to April 30. In 2001, the High Court (HC) had directed the government to shift the factories from Hazaribagh to Savar, considering the critical situation of the River Buriganga due to the discharge of highly toxic untreated chemical waste from tanneries. By 2003, untreated waste from more than 200 tanneries had virtually turned the Buriganga into a noxious pool.
