Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association has asked all its member factories to complete workers’ database using bio-metric system by December 31.
It issued a circular on 23rd this month with the directive to all the members across the country.
Earlier, the BGMEA board of directors decided to make biometric database of workers mandatory at a meeting on October 17.
“This is necessary to give benefits or any compensations to workers under law. If we don’t have such a database, how could we give these to workers,” BGMEA President Siddiqur Rahman told Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
He said this would also help identify workers and have a knowledge about the country’s total number of RMG workers.
To implement the project, the BGMEA has signed a deal with two IT farms — Systech and Tiger IT.
According to the BGMEA circular, the biometric database will help create a bridge between owners and workers of the factories.
It said the database will store workers’ records including their curriculum vitae, information related to their employment and identities.
As per the rules under Labour Act, the export-oriented factories have to contribute 0.3% of their respective export earnings to the Workers’ Welfare Fund.
To utilise the fund, the BGMEA would need to know the exact number of workers employed in the factories and their detail identifications, the rules states.
The factories, who will introduce biometric database, will be given information of the workers through AFIS client software, finger scanner benefits, capturing photos of workers through webcam, examining the data, training and other benefits when they pay the fixed fee of the first year.
A factory owner will have to pay fixed costs ranging from Tk45,000 to Tk1.5 lakh based on the workers employed, according to the rate fixed in the BGMEA board meeting.
The BGMEA first took the initiative of introducing biometric database after the Rana Plaza incident in 2013 which killed over 1,135 workers.
However, the factory owners have so far showed a little interest in biometric registration of workers.