Md Joynal Abedin Khan
The mandatory use of jute bags for packaging 19 products is being ignored due to lax implementation of an existing law.
The reluctance, entertained by producers and customers in using jute sacks, spurts a decline in use of the fibre-made natural bags.
The poor compliance of the law in this regard is responsible for the low or no use of the jute bags in packaging by the manufacturers and by default it gives spurt to the use of synthetic (plastic, polyethene), experts said.
The traders skip jute bags as they are made of natural fibre and has a risk of getting soaked easily even putting such sacks on earth directly, damaging the quality of goods like sugar and flour, they said adding that the main risk lies when they are exposed to sudden rain during transportation.
Professor Abu Ahmed, a senior teacher of Economics Department of Dhaka University, said the government initiative is absolutely right for saving the jute sector.
“For implementing the jute law in packaging industries, the government could take the help of law enforcing agencies including RAB,” he said.
Citing a recent study, Md Fazlur Rahman, Managing Director of Golden Touch, a bag producing factory, claimed that about only 30 per cent jute bags are used to package 19 types of commodities during transportation and preservation.
“The lax monitoring of the law is mainly blamed for the reluctance in using the jute bag for the special commodity transportation,” he said.
Earlier, the government enacted ‘Mandatory Jute Packaging Act 2010’ requiring the use of the jute sacks and packs for preservation and transportation of 19 commodities including paddy, rice, wheat, maize, fertiliser, sugar, spices, turmeric, onion, ginger, garlic, coriander, pulses, potato, flour, crude flour and rice bran, poultry feed and fish feed.
According to the government order, use of jute bag is compulsory in preservation and transportation of 20 kg or more of the 19 commodities. A first-time offender can be fined up to Tk50,000 or a year in prison or both. Repeat offences will double the punishment and lead to seizure. If any company is found flouting the law, its owner/director/official will be held liable unless they prove themselves innocent.
During visits to some markets in the city’s Maniknagar, Mughda, Gopibagh, Jatrabari, Kamalapur areas, the correspondent found the producers, traders and consumers rampantly using plastic and polythene bags in utter violation of the government order. In some cases, some sacks of rice and flour were found carrying no company logo or details of the product on the label which were being sold in stores in Mankinagar and Gopibagh markets on Thursday.
KM Layek Ali, General Secretary of the Bangladesh Auto Major and Husking Association, said, “Every single miller in our association use jute bags. The people who use plastic bags flouting laws are not millers.”
Seeking anonymity, a wholesaler in Mankinagar, said that most of the onion, garlic, and ginger in Dhaka are imported from China in plastic bags and it was out of their control.
“Jute bags are costlier than plastic bags. If we use jute bag for packaging, the cost will increase. As a result, the consumer will have to pay more money,” said Aminul Islam, General Manager of Raisa Auto Rice Mills in old Dhaka.
He claimed that for a 50-kilogram jute sack they have to pay Tk 40-45 but the price of a synthetic polypropylene sack of the same size costs Tk 30.
Shariful Mia, a representative from TCB dealers in the city’s Maniknagar, said that they received the sugar in plastic sacks from government office and sold them in the same sacks from truck-mounted shops at fair prices.
Bangladesh Jute Goods Exporter Association’s vice-chairman HM Rezaul Karim said, “The enlisted products, only few items like paddy and rice were being packaged with jute bags in the first one or two years inside the enactment of law because of repeated mobile court drives. Since 2019 the traders have been flouting the law that mandates use of the bags as the monitoring got relaxed.”
Hossain Ali Khondoker, Director General of the Department of Jute, said, “We are taking two approaches – motivation and enforcement. We are meeting regularly with the associations of 19 scheduled products over the use of natural bags. The trouble in enforcement of the law is that when we conduct raids businesspeople go on a strike. That is not preferable at all.”
In response to concerns about wasting sugar and flour in jute sacks, he suggested that businesspeople should use an extra polythene liner inside jute sacks until ‘Sonali Bag’ – a Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation innovation — hits the market.
According to him, around 1,328 mobile court raids were conducted in the fiscal year 2020-21 and realized Tk 92.01 lakh in fine.
BJMC chairman Md Abdur Rouf stressed that the government has to run mobile court time to time to ensure effective implementation of the law.
