Tanners will not take responsibility if rawhides rot
The road stretching from Savar Hemayetpur bazar to the Savar tannery estate has turned unusable and the roads inside the estate are also in poor condition.
Operating trucks to carry rawhides on these roads during Eid-ul-Azha will be risky and if any truck gets stuck it will create fatal traffic jams and the rawhide will start rotting.
Leaders of the Bangladesh Finished Leather, Leather-goods, and Footwear Exporters Association (BFLLFEA) feared this while addressing a press conference at its Dhanmondi office in the capital on Saturday.
BFLLFEA chairman Mohiuddin Ahmed Mahin read out the keynote speech at the press meet organised to brief the media about possible problems tanners will face during Eid-ul-Azha as the authorities have asked them to shift their factories from the city’s Hazaribagh neighbourhood to the Savar tannery estate.
Eid-ul-Azha generates a huge volume of rawhides as hundreds of thousands of animals are sacrificed during the Muslim religious festival.
Mohiuddin said small rawhide entrepreneurs used to bring the rawhide to Hazaribagh during Eid, but the government has put an embargo on bringing rawhide to Hazaribagh.
“And taking rawhides to Savar tannery estate on dilapidated roads is risky. Against this backdrop, an uncertainty has been created in collecting, transporting, processing and preserving the rawhide this time,” he said.
He urged the government to come forward to solve these problems saying, “Tanners will try their best to preserve the rawhide. Even after that, tanners will not be able to do so.”
He said tanners will not take responsibility if the rawhides rot.
The tanners’ leader said one cannot prevent rot if salts are not added to the rawhide within six hours of skinning an animal.
Shahjalal Tannery owner Shahjalal Majumdar said some 70 tanneries have already started production at the Savar tannery estate. The efficiency of the tanneries has increased two or three fold.
“So, tanners will not face any problem in processing the rawhides if the roads are repaired immediately and uninterrupted water, power and gas connections are ensured,” he added.