BSTI Chittagong regional office limps

Bangladesh Standard and Testing Institution (BSTI), regional office in Chittagong, left, and only one examiner, right, tests a sample at its chemical laboratory. PHOTO: STAR

Only 50, out of 145 BSTI listed items, can be tested at the Chittagong Office since none of its three laboratories is properly equipped, sources said.

Samples of rest 95 goods are sent to the central office in the capital that delays the whole process of obtaining BSTI certificate by the intending firms before going to production.

Chittagong Bakery Owners Association (CBOA) at a press conference last week threatened agitation demanding implementation of its ten-point, including installation of a fully fledged laboratory at BSTI in Chittagong and certificates for products within one month.

Kamal Prasad Das, an assistant director at the BSTI Chittagong Office, said three labs - chemical, physical and one at Metrology Department, have capacity to test quality of only 50 goods, out of 145, which is compulsory.

Chittagong Office can not test many important goods like drinking water, natural mineral water, full cream sweetened condensed milk, whole milk powder, lozenge, toffee, ice-cream, skin cream, after shave lotion, shaving cream or lip-sticks due to lack of a microbiological lab at its Chemical Laboratory, BSTI sources said.

The Physical Lab has been forced to confine its activities to testing only five items such as ballpoint pens, common building clay bricks, GP (Galvanise Plain) Sheet, AC Energy Metre and safety matches. It lacks facilities to test cement and MS Rods.

Shawkat Osman, deputy director of BSTI, said the Metrology Department, which measures and tests different types of weighing devices or machines, weights of metre bars, tank lorries, storage tanks and petrol pumps, badly needs upgrading with modern equipment and apparatus.

Besides, the regional office also faces shortage of manpower at every department, sources said.

Out of 26 field level posts, some 19 have been lying vacant for long, they said, adding that six posts of assistant directors have been lying vacant at Chemical and Physical labs for over three years.

There is no examiner in the labs sans three from Dhaka central office working on deputation, they said.

In the Metrology Department, deputy director himself and an examiner on deputation from Dhaka are working.

Two posts, out of four, are lying vacant in the Certification Marks (CM) department hampering the process of certificate clarification works, said Kamal Prasad, also acting incharge of the department.

Shawkat said BSTI needs to be fully equipped while the ongoing construction wok of the office building also required to be completed immediately.

The regional office along with the laboratories was set up under the project of "Office Establishment and its Development in Chittagong and Khulna" in 2005, he said.

"We have huge area here and need to expand facilities with allocation from the government," Shawkat said.

A project of around Tk 360 crore was taken recently to develop the existing offices and set up BSTI offices in each of the grater districts, he said.