Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation has planned another tannery park with an effluent treatment plant at Savar when it failed to complete the current one in the same area in the past 15 years.For the new park, around 200 acres of land have already been selected by the district officials at the directive from government high-ups, BSCIC officials have told New Age.The new site is close to the existing ‘Savar Leather Industry Estate’ that BSCIC could not be complete till now after starting the project in 2003.Because of the delay, the relocation of hazardous tanneries from the capital’s Hazaribagh to Savar, as per a High Court order, is yet to be accomplished.Many tanners are still unwilling to shift their tanneries to Savar, mentioning that the effluent treatment plant and solid waste dumping station — two major components of the ‘Savar Leather Industry Estate’ — were still incomplete.Besides, they demand more lands in the adjacent area so that sub-sector of the leather industries could be set up there.Green campaigners have blamed both the government and the tanners for the delay in relocation of the hazardous tanneries, which dumped untreated wastes into the moribund River Buriaganga, for the last one and a half decades. The need for yet another tannery estate should have been realised by the government much earlier, thinks Bangladesh Paribesh Andolan general secretary MA Matin.He also suggests that the government should remain cautious so as not to give the tanners yet another reason for the delay in the much-needed relocation of their tanneries.On April 8, Department of Environment finally disconnected 193 water, 224 electricity and 54 gas connections to tanneries at Hazaribagh in compliance with a High Court directive to save the Buriganga.Earlier, the tanners missed deadline after deadline to relocate their tanneries to newly constructed tannery park at Savar.BSCIC’s general manager of planning Khankodar Aminuzzaman said the government already directed deputy commissioner of Dhaka to acquire the identified lands at Savar.The industries ministry asked BSCIC to submit to Planning Commission a project for construction of the second leather industry estate in the same area for its approval, he said.As per the initial plan, BSCIC will set up a effluent treatment plan in addition to developing infrastructures for composite factories and sub-sector.Bangladesh Tanners Association president Shaheen Ahmed commented that BSCIC was struggling to complete the CETP at the under-construction leather estate.Test run of the CETP, conducted in January, was not successful because of ‘poor quality’ equipment installed by the Chinese contractors, he added.He suggested that the government must build a better quality CETP to ensure protection of the environment at new tannery estate.He, however, spoke in favour of the BSCIC move to build another tannery estate in the adjacent area for the successful relocation of the tanneries from the city’s Hazaribagh.In 2003, BSCIC took the relocation project at a cost of Tk 175.75 crore after the HC directed relocation of the tanneries from Hazaribagh within two years following a write petition filed by Bangladesh Environmental Layers Association.The tenure of the project was extended at least five times which resulted in hike in project cost to Tk 1,078.71 crore.
