Savar's leather industrial estate is fully ready to collect the hides of sacrificial animals. Factory owners and BSCIC have taken a range of steps: salt and other chemicals have been stocked, extra workers are standing by, and additional security has been arranged across the whole BSCIC area.

A visit on Monday (19 June) found accumulated rubbish being cleared from the BSCIC area and drainage channels being cleaned. A designated site has been set aside for extra waste, and the relevant department is checking for electrical faults. The central effluent treatment plant (CETP) has also been made ready for the extra load at Eid.

Officials of several factories, including Samsul Alam and Ibrahim, said work multiplies when the sacrifice Eid comes, and the factories come fully alive on Eid day. After the raw hides are collected, workers are busy preserving them, so extra salt and chemicals have to be stocked, and extra workers have been kept ready this year.

But they said factory owners are uneasy because salt and chemicals cost more this year, and they are also paying workers higher wages than last time.

Progati Tannery owner Shamsul Alam said tannery owners will buy hides according to market demand. "But we are worried about salt and electricity," he said. If it is very hot this year, quick steps will be needed to preserve the hides, so he asked everyone to sprinkle salt on hides themselves right after sacrifice. Otherwise, there will be serious doubt about their quality.

Bangladesh Tanners Association general secretary Shakhawat Ullah said the collection target this year is one crore pieces. Everyone is being repeatedly asked, considering it a national resource, to preserve hides with salt right after buying them and to get them to the tanneries as quickly as possible.

He said factory owners are also worried about electricity: if there is no power at the first stage of preservation they will suffer losses. He asked that power be distributed in the BSCIC area according to demand and importance.

Mahfuzur Rahman Rizwan, executive engineer of the leather industrial estate, said 142 of the 162 tanneries are ready. Work to provide all facilities, including uninterrupted gas and electricity, has been completed, and several steps have been taken this time to repair drains and avoid disorder among trucks.

Tannery police outpost in-charge Russell Molla told Jagonews24 that extra security has been arranged across the BSCIC area. Besides protecting workers and factories, police will make sure vehicles carrying hides do not cause jams.

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