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BFIDC to sell out prime Kaptai unit

CBA leaders say vested quarters eyeing Karnaphuli Timber Extraction and Processing Unit for long

MONIRUL ALAM, back from Kaptai
The Bangladesh Forest Industries Development Corporation (BFIDC) is going to sell out the Karnaphuli Timber Extraction and Processing Unit, a prime project with about Tk 200 crore assets despite protests by its employees.
Its employees and CBA leaders claimed that the 'mother project' is being eyed for long by some vested quarters. Some high officials of BFIDC and the forest ministry are behind the "conspiracy", they claimed.
The decision to sell out the unit, taken at meeting held at the ministry in Dhaka, will be implemented by this month, they claimed. The meeting was attended by Forest and Environment Minister Tariqul Islam.
Its employees, numbering 204 including officials, had urged the authorities to reconsider the decision and to properly equip it with appropriate equipment for better functioning. Talking to this correspondent during a visited last week, some of the CBA leaders and officials said the government is selling out the unit on a false that that it is loss-making. The unit, set up in 1960, is now in a run down condition because of lack of appropriate machinery, they said.
Yet it earned a revenue of Tk 31 lakh in the last financial year from supply of processed timber and sized logs to other industrial units of BFIDC.
It has Tk 13 crore bills outstanding with different BFIDC units, they said.
They said they also proposed a 'golden handshake' for its employees, but it was ignored by the authorities.
Only purchase of two bulldozers, one crane and repair of some vehicles could make the unit fully operational, they said.
The unit was set up to extract timber from forests in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) and supply processed timber to different government and
non-government organisations as per need.
The processing unit collects trees felled by storm and indigenous people to made land suitable for Jhum cultivation.
They blamed some top officials of BFIDC and the ministry for the decision, allegedly made in connivance with some vested quarters.
"Instead of making the unit fully operational, they are selling it and displacing the employees", said CBA Secretary Anwarul Islam.
"Records showed that it is a profitable unit," said another CBA leader Abul Kashem.
He however admitted that the employees are unpaid for eight months.
"We do not realise bills. We are not paid as BFIDC is not realising the bills and paying us", he said.
The CBA leaders said the unit has no bank liability and can be made highly profitable with a small investment.