The government starts recruiting 60 engineers for remediation coordination cell of the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments for remediation works in garment factories as the tenure of previously appointed 60 engineers expired in June this year. According to the labour ministry sources, the government would contact a firm to recruit the engineers for 20 months as the tenure of the RCC project was extended for two more years (up to June 2021). Last week, the ministry has published an advertisement on newspaper to choose a consulting firm from where 60 engineers would be recruited to follow-up remediation in the RMG factories inspected under National Action Plan supported by the International Labour Organisation. Besides, the engineers would also look into the remediation in 223 factories handed over and terminated by Accord and follow-up 700 factories handed over by Alliance, sources said. The labour ministry has already published a notice describing the terms and reference of the consulting firm saying that the firm should have minimum five-year work experience in handling projects in the government, semi-government, autonomous, or multinational organisations. It also added that the organisation must have done works in the organisations with an allocation of minimum Tk 8 crore in total and Tk 2 crore in a single work order. The consulting firm that would be selected for the assignment was expected to recruit 60 engineers (20 electrical, 20 fire and 20 structural) having minimum three-year-experience in their respective fields, the ToR said. The core functions of the engineers would be monitoring and implementation of corrective action plan in the readymade garment sector. Following the Rana Plaza Building collapse in April 2013 that killed more than 1,100 people, a total of 3,780 garment factories were assessed under the three initiatives: European retailer platform Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, North American buyers’ platform Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety and the government led and ILO supported national initiative. Out of 3,780 garment factories, 1,549 were inspected under the national initiative, from which 573 were closed down, 79 relocated and 130 units were shifted to the Accord and Alliance lists. Currently, the DIFE monitors remediation works in 755 factories through the ‘remediation coordination cell’ formed in May last year. Alliance left Bangladesh in 2018 with almost 100 per cent remediation in its inspected factories. Accord still works as court extended its tenure and the platform completed 90 per cent remediation in its inspected factories.
