The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) yesterday approved a project of Tk75 crore to set up a powdered milk factory at Baghabari Ghat in Sirajganj.
The approval came at the 29th ECNEC meeting of the current fiscal year held at the NEC conference room in the city’s Sher-e-Bangla Nagar area with NEC Chairperson and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
The project would be implemented by Milk Vita by June 2017 and it is expected to produce 25 metric tons of powdered milk per day, said Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal while briefing the media after the meeting.
The project would help meet the growing demand of powdered milk to some extent, he added.
Currently, Bangladesh imports 21,700 metric tons of powdered milk per year whereas the daily import of powdered milk is 59 metric tons. The per day production capacity of the country’s lone powdered milk factory under Milk Vita is 12.5 metric tons per day.
The meeting also approved another project titled Strengthening Women’s Ability for Productive New Opportunities, or Swapno, worth Tk853 crore, to be implemented at 1030 unions under 106 upazilas of 22 districts.
The government would provide Tk213 crore for the project while the remaining Tk640 crore would come as grant from UNDP.
The project would create part-time jobs for the poor women in the village areas in the lean season and it is a social safety net project, said Kamal.
Under the project, the poor rural women would be given Tk200 per day for various works including rural road repair and maintenance, he added.
Of their wages, Tk50 would be deposited to bank every day and after a period of one-and-a-half years, the amount would stand at Tk25,000, which the depositors could later invest in more income-generating activities, said the minister.
