Bangladesh is now recognized worldwide for setting up eco-friendly factories
Half of the world’s top 10 eco-friendly factories are in Bangladesh. It is pretty hopeful and inspiring. After the Rana Plaza tragedy in 2013, the focus was set up towards eco-friendly factories and improved the working environment.
The USDBC, a US-based think tank, regularly publishes a list of the world’s best eco-friendly factories. The organization works in eco-friendly factories around the world.
At present, just as there is an initiative to exempt taxes of environmentally friendly factories, there are also provisions to take punitive action against polluting factories.
Environmental protection surcharge levy started in FY 2014-15 as a punitive measure against polluting factories, a surcharge of 1 percent on the total value of products produced by non-environmentally friendly factories.
Then it became known as ‘Green Tax’ and appreciated in all quarters. However, that compliment could not retain in the years that followed. In the last seven years, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) collected 80 million in environmental protection surcharge.
Not only that, the Department of Environment (DOE), Bangladesh, has not been able to update the list of factories so far.
According to NBR sources, BDT.2.58 million has collected in the first year (2014-15). After that, BDT.1.9 million has collected in FY 2016-17, BDT.1.6 million in FY 2017-18, BDT. 48.5 million in FY2018-19, BDT.14 million in FY2019-20, and around BDT. 10.00 million in FY 2020-21.
In this regard, a top official of the NBR, Bangladesh‘s Value Added Tax (VAT) or VAT department informed that “The initiative to collect environmental protection surcharge is quite good.
Nevertheless, the DOE was supposed to provide an updated list of environmental pollutants regularly, but they did so only a few years ago. In the meantime, many factories have applied to remove them from the list.
Again, some factories may include companies that pollute the environment in the list. Due to these considerations, collecting environmental protection surcharges at the field level has become difficult. The DOE decides which organization pollutes the environment and which does not; VAT officials cannot identify it.”
VAT officials say, “The main reason for imposing environmental protection surcharges on companies that pollute the environment is to force owners to use waste treatment plants. That is, the waste from the factory should not pollute the soil, water, air, and the environment.”
The NBR has also issued a policy for collecting surcharges in this regard. However, after the DOE gave a preliminary list of seven hundred and fifty organizations polluting the environment in 2015, it did not do the job anymore.
As a result, VAT officials do not know how many companies have developed themselves or how many new factories are polluting the environment. So there is no speed in collecting environmental protection surcharge.
Abdul Hamid, Director General (DG) of the Environment Department, said, “The initiative to impose surcharge is good. It is quite effective in reducing environmental pollution.
I am new to this department. That is why I need some time to clarify why the list of organizations polluting the environment was not updating yet.”
The VAT department of NBR is responsible for collecting environmental protection surcharges. However, no surcharge was collected under any other VAT Commissionerate except Rangpur, Rajshahi, Chittagong, and Dhaka East VAT Commissionerate.
Although the NBR must collect environmental protection surcharges every month, the VAT officials report procrastinating.
