The government is likely to take action against those RMG factories that made little progress on safety issues as per the review panel recommendations to ensure workplace safety.
In the December 6 letter addressed to Syed Ahmed, inspector general, Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishment (DIFE), the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety said the progress made by some 11 RMG factories on implementation of the review panel recommendations is not satisfactory.
The Alliance also sought cooperation from DIFE to facilitate quick implementation.
According to the letter, some factory owners failed to make any significant progress over the past two years.
Of the 11 factories, seven got 412-642 days to implement the review committee recommendations, said the Alliance.
The recommendations include demolishing communication tower, removing water tank, columns, partition walls and toilets from rooftop and doing detailed engineering assessment to ensure safety standard.
“We are reviewing the progress as per the recommendations,” Syed Ahmed told the Dhaka Tribune.
“In answer to the Alliance call, DIFE has set a four-day time frame to review the progress and I am hopeful that we will get the report within a week and action will be taken based on the findings.”
The factories found non-compliant with the recommendations would face closure and no factory will run without having safety standard, added the inspector general.
The Alliance Managing Director M Rabin told the Dhaka Tribune, “We communicated with the factory owners to know about the implementation progress, but they were reluctant to inform us of the issue.”
But Salimur Razi, commercial manager of HKTG Garments Limited, said they failed to comply with the recommendations of the review panel due to fund crunch.
The Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety has completed assessment of 837 factories.
The outcry over safety issues began after the Rana Plaza factory disaster that killed over 1,135 workers and injured over 2,500 people on April 24, 2013.
After the factory disaster, the Alliance made a commitment to provide financial and technical support to improve fire and building safety standard of RMG factories from which they source products.