Chattogram Custom House is destroying, in an environmentally sound way, 3,268 tonnes of unauctionable, substandard and expired goods held in 126 containers that had been lying at Chattogram port for a long time. The National Board of Revenue (NBR) gave the information in a press release on Tuesday, 25 August.

The destruction began at 10am on Monday, 24 August, at a designated site behind the Republic Club at Chattogram port, and the NBR said it was continuing without interruption.

According to the NBR, the goods include 34 containers of substandard dates, 40 containers of expired soda ash and 18 containers of expired feed-grade limestone. There are also rotten and spoiled oranges, onions, cashew nuts and other products.

To ensure safety, teams from the Fire Service and Civil Defence, Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), Ansar members and the local Bandar police station are present on site and assisting.

The NBR said destroying perishable and harmful goods that had been lying at the port for so long would help ease container congestion at Chattogram port. It would also reduce the risks such goods pose to the environment and to port security.

The NBR added that, to ensure the overall security and environmental protection of the port, unauctionable and destroyable goods would be destroyed in phases with the cooperation of all agencies concerned, and the work would continue on an urgent basis.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.