Bscic to set up salt industrial city in Chattogram

Md Mushtaq Hasan, chairman of Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (Bscic), has announced the setting up of a salt industrial city in Chattogram in line with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's plan to build an industrialised Bangladesh by 2041 and to meet the demand of salt industry owners.

If salt mill owners determine the demand of their plots and send it to the Bscic authorities, they will look into the possibility and take up initiatives to build a separate salt industrial city in Chattogram, the Bscic chairman said. 

He was addressing a half-yearly review meeting with salt mill owners of the Chattogram Salt Zone, jointly organised by Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorders (CIDD) project and Nutrition International (NI), on Saturday in Chattogram, reads a press release.

The Bscic chairman said the price of potassium iodate will be kept Tk500 less per kg for salt mill owners from January next, considering their losses induced by Covid-19. Potassium iodate is sold at Tk2,500-Tk3,000 per kg.

Bscic is the only agency that imports potassium iodate and supply it to salt mills through the CIDD project. Salt mills market iodised salt by mixing refined salt through supplied potassium iodate machines.

The Bscic chairman further said if the government acquires 30,000 acres of khas land and allocates it to the salt farmers at low cost, the cost of salt production will come down and the poor salt farmers of the country will get a fair price for their salt. Necessary steps will be taken on behalf of the Bscic in this regard, he added.

The meeting was chaired by Ahmed Jamal Naser Chowdhury, deputy general manager, Industrial Support Centre, Bscic, Chattogram.

Muhammad Ataur Rahman Siddiqui, director (Engineering and Project Implementation); Akhil Ranjan Tarafdar, general manager (Marketing) and project director (CIDD); Babul Chandra Nath, regional director, Regional Office, Chattogram; Sarwar Hossain, deputy project director, CIDD; Nurul Kabir, president of Salt Mill Owners Association; and Md Gujar Ahmed, national programme officer, NI were present as special guests at the meeting. 

Salt industry owners of Chittagong Salt Zone were also present on the occasion.