The Japanese government has taken an initiative to make vulnerable buildings of garments factories in Bangladesh safe for the RMG workers through conducting retrofitting, a technology to make vulnerable building jolt resistant.

‘Japanese technology and experience to make building earthquake resistance can help Bangladesh to strengthen its vulnerable RMG buildings for avoiding any tragic incident like Rana plaza in future,’ Senior Representative of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Hiroyuki Tomita said in a seminar at a hotel in Dhaka on Saturday.

The Project Capacity Development of Natural Disaster Resistant techniques of Construction and Retrofitting for Public Buildings(CNCRP), implemented by Public Works Department (PWD) with technical support of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) organised the seminar titled ‘Development of Safer Building : Overcoming the Tragedy of Rana Plaza Incident’.

The JICA High official said the Japanese experts have already started their work to do retrofit to two RMG factories initially and the JICA will implement a large project soon to cover more vulnerable RMG buildings of the country.

In a presentation JICA's Assistant Programme Officer Kaniz Fatema said after tragic incident of Rana plaza, JICA took a programme titled ‘RMG Sector Safe Environment Project’ and created a Taka 100 crore fund with the Bangladesh Bank for financing the RMG owners to make their building safe for the workers.

In another presentation, JICA expert team leader Fumio Kaneko said there is a concept that retrofitting is very expensive and it is not viable for economy like Bangladesh. But it is totally wrong. Usually it only costs 10-30 percent of new construction.

PWD Chief Engineer Md. Kabir Ahmed Bhuiyan spoke as the chief guest while CNCRP project director Engr Md. Ahsan Habib gave the welcome speech.

JICA Expert Deputy team leader J Matsuo, Yuko Nakagawa of JET, Professor Y. Nakano of Tokyo University, Professor M. Maeda and Professor M. Ubaura of Tohoku University and former CNCRP PD Engineer M Sikder made separate presentations in two technical sessions.