Cabinet Okays Drafts Of Three Agreements With India

The approval was given in the weekly meeting of the cabinet held at Bangladesh Secretariat with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.

Briefing reporters after the meeting Cabinet Secretary M Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan said one of the drafts was on "Agreement between 'Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution' and 'Bureau of Indian Standards on Cooperation in the field of Standardization and Conformity Assessment."

Under the agreement the authorities of the both the countries would acknowledge standards and testing certificates of goods and services of each other counties. Secondly, both sides would take necessary measures within a specific time for testing of the exportable and importable goods, bringing consistency in the testing process, cabinet secretary said.

The agreement would promote mutual trade and businesses of the two countries bringing direct benefit for the business community and indirect benefit for the consumers of the both countries, he said.

Two other drafts are on- agreement for passenger bus service between Kolkata and Agartala of India via Dhaka and passenger bus service between Dhaka and Indian city of Guwahati via Sylhet and Shillong. The cabinet okayed the related protocols on operation of the passenger bus services on the routes.

The cabinet changed the office time of the government, semi-government, autonomous and semiautonomous bodies for the month of coming Ramadan. As per new schedule, the office time will start at 9 am and close at 3.30 pm from Sunday to Thursday except a fifteen minute recess from 1.15 pm for Zohr prayers.

Other departments including banks, financial institutions, postal department, hospitals and private sector offices would fix their own office timings. Office time of the High Court and other subordinate courts will be fixed by the Supreme Court, he said.

The cabinet secretary said the cabinet endorsed the draft of the Bangladesh Economic Zones (Amendment) Bill, 2015. The new law will facilitate establishment of economic zone in the country in partnership with other counties under government to government (G2G) basis. The new law has a provision to constitute a committee for processing of the economic zones to be established under G2G basis.

The existing provision restricting establishment of economic zone within the City Corporation, municipality and cantonment board areas has been relaxed in the new law, the cabinet secretary said adding that the provision will not be applicable for establishing any IT based economic zone.

The cabinet approved a revised draft of the National Social Security Strategy (NSSS) aimed at effective implementation of the Social Safety Net Programmes (SSNP) with a view to bringing every poor, ultra-poor and vulnerable people of all ages under the programme.

General Economic Division (GED) of the Planning Commission under the guidance of Center for Monitoring Committee on Social Safety Net Programmes prepared the strategy.

Under the new strategy, special attention would be given to the physically challenged persons and in all social safety net programme the physically challenged persons would always be given more priority and allocation from non-disabled persons. Now as many as 145 social safety net programmes are being implemented by 23 ministries and departments in the country for which around 2.3 percent of the GDP is spent.

Ministers, advisors, state ministers in charge of different ministries and concerned secretaries attended the meeting.