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Dhaka Friday,  Mar 29, 2024

Cabinet okays petroleum draft bill

EB Reporter

The cabinet has given its seal of approval to a draft bill styled ‘The Petroleum Law 2015’ aimed at regulating import, transport and storage of petroleum efficiently through making the existing law modern.
Earlier, law ministry vetted the final draft of the proposed law.
The council of ministers gave their approval at the weekly cabinet meeting at the secretariat on Monday with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
Briefing reporters after the meeting, Cabinet Secretary Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan said the draft law has a provision to raise punishment for violating the law in case of petroleum production, refining, recycling, mixing and reusing.
“As per the draft, six months’ imprisonment to be awarded or Tk 10,000 to be fined or both if the authorities concerned don’t provide information on any accident during the consignment of petroleum substance. In case of repeated offences, the punishment will be doubled.”
Earlier, the punishment was three months’ jail or Tk 5,000 in fine for such accidents.
Bhuiyan said the cabinet earlier made a decision to modify and upgrade the 1934 law which was amended in 1986.
The cabinet also approved a draft bill styled ‘Bangladesh Ship Recycling Law 2015’ to oversee industries being set up in a certain area and assess environmental impacts.
“The government made the Ship-breaking and Recycling Rules-2011 as per the directives of the apex court and the industry is currently being regulated by the rules,” the secretary said.
Shipping ministry and environment and forests ministry are regulating the activities of the industry.
“As the government declared shipbuilding, ship-scrapping and recycling as an industry, it took the initiative to enact a law to regulate the sector in a coordinated method,” he said.
The draft proposed establishing a recycling zone and forming a board. It keeps a provision of one-year imprisonment and Tk 10 lakh to Tk 30 lakh in fines for importing ship or scrapping ship on the coast without the board’s permission.
In the meeting, the premier expressed satisfaction over implementation of the decisions of the cabinet as the rate of implementing decisions is 64.71 per cent for the second quarter (April-June).
“The cabinet gave 68 decisions through its 13 meetings this year. Of them, 44 have been implemented in the meantime. At this time, three laws have been passed in parliament,” Bhuiyan said.
Sources said Public Administration Minister Syed Ashraful Islam, who was sacked from LGRD ministry recently, was seen active in the cabinet meeting.
“Syed Ashraf emphasised production of petroleum at lower cost for rapid growth of economy and proposed to give incentives to produce meat in order to reduce import reliance,” a meeting source said.
It was learnt that Hasina directed her cabinet colleagues to mount their monitoring to ensure rapid implementation of various development projects.

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