气候变化领域集成服务门户

Alleged links between lead batteries and 'illegal' factories

Old Dhaka-based Razim Auto House sells its own brand of MR Power batteries through 300 country-wide distributors. But the brand has no approval from the Bangladesh Standard and Testing Institution.

Mehedi Hasan Razim, the proprietor, said there are more than 100 local brands in the market. "Most of them are substandard," he said. 

MR Power batteries come from two factories, but Razim refused to give details about them as they were not registered under the Ministry of Industries.

Bangladesh's formal battery industry mainly produces wet lead batteries for the automobile, telecommunication and solar sectors.

According to Munawar Misbah Moin, ABMEAB President and also group director at the country's pioneering battery company Rahimafrooz, the overall size of the battery market is more than Tk10,000 crore, 75% of which is "illegal."  

He also said locally customised e-rickshaws first created a demand for dry lead batteries, which were initially imported through under-invoicing from China. 

Recently, this correspondent reached out to two factories — ATL Battery and Geli Industrial — at Sreepur in Gazipur. 

Both of the factories were fenced by high concrete walls. The watchmen blocked journalists from entering the premises, saying the owners had stopped operations long ago. 

But near ATL Battery, worker Khalid (pseudonym), said some 25 workers salvage lead from used batteries and produce new lead plates at the factory under the supervision of some "Chinese instructors". 

ATL Battery's Managing Director AKM Farid Uddin Ahmed claimed his 12-year-old factory, with a monthly production capacity of 900 tonnes of lead plates, has all necessary permits. He declined to comment on any partnerships.

Ahmed Belal, the deputy inspector general for Gazipur at the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments (DIFE), said that the renewal of ATL Battery's compliance certificate is pending because of allegations of legal violations.