Violation of law hampers jute industry growth

Staff Reporter :
The jute bags and sacks remained under used as a large number of businesses are packaging commodities ignoring the packaging act and a lack of enforcement of the law by the responsible authorities.

For enforcing compulsory use of jute sacks for packaging, especially food grains, the government enacted the Mandatory Jute Packaging Act in 2010.

It is alleged most of the big firms do not follow the Jute Packaging Act. The agencies responsible for enforcement of the law some times raid smaller factories, but the big mills remain untouched.

As per the Packaging Act -2010, a total of 19 products, including paddy, rice, wheat, maize, fertilizers, sugar, spices, turmeric, onion, ginger, garlic, coriander, pulses, potato, flour, crude flour (ata), rice bran, poultry feed and fish feed, are listed to use jute sacks to package.

However, the order to use jute bags for packaging these 19 products is being ignored which eventually makes the jute sacks under-used although jute products has been declared as ‘Product of the Year 2023’.

Experts said in this regard that, the implementation of the mandatory packaging law could rescue this sector as the law can plays a significant role in raising the local demand.

The primary focus of the law is not only to protect the interests of jute growers and millers, it also take account of wake of the global campaign on using of environment friendly, biodegradable natural materials.

Despite the law, the ground reality tells the reverse story that the traders and millers using plastic bags intensely to package their products including those 19 items.

During visits to some markets in the city’s New market,Babubazar, Maniknagar, Mughda, Gopibagh, Jatrabari, Kamalapur areas, it is found that 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 Saturday.

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.

Describing the reasons for using plastic sacks replacing the jute sacks, Aminul Islam, General Manager of Raisa Auto Rice Mills in old Dhaka said “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.”
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.

HM Rezaul Karim, the former Chairman of the Bangladesh Jute Association (BJA) said, “The enlisted products, only few items like paddy and rice were being packaged with jute bags in the first one or two years of 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, he informed.

Md Abdur Rauf, secretary to the jute and textiles ministry, admitted that jute bags were not being used as intended.

As imported rice and other agro-products are coming in plastic bags, a section of millers and traders are taking advantage of it, said Rauf.

“Only enforcement will not work. We will sit with businesses regionally to increase the use of jute bags for packaging.” the secretary added.