The Iodised Salt Bill, 2021 was passed in Parliament on Monday, aiming to ensure proportionate use of iodine in salt and regulate the salt market in the country. The Bill was passed by voice vote when Industries Minister Nurul Majid Humayun Mahmud placed  it. Read: BHBFC to have extended areas of services; Bill lands in JSThe proposed Bill will be enacted through annulling previous ‘Iodine Deficiency Disease Prevention Act-1989’.Under the proposed law, a 14-member national salt committee, headed by the Industries Secretary as its chairman, will be formed to oversee production, processing, refining, storage, transportation and marketing of salt, ensuring iodine use in salt, supply of iodine to the salt factories, regulating salt import, as well as to place recommendations over salt management policy.There will be a separate cell under the Industries Ministry to ensure the proportionate mixing of iodine in salt.If anyone wants to produce, process, store, import, supply salt or set up a salt factory, the concerned person will have to get registered under the proposed law. Read:Updated Bankers’ Book Evidence coming, Bill placedIt would be considered an offense if anyone to tries to import, produce, market or stock salt without registering beforehand.If anyone produces, processes and imports salt and runs iodised salt factory without registration, or doesn’t maintain the standard, the person will be sentenced to one to three years of jail and fined Tk 50,000- Tk 15 lakh or both.The law violators can be punished through mobile courts. Read: Bill placed in JS with provision of archiving all recordsAccording to the bill, During the past decades, Bangladesh has done a remarkable job bringing down the numbers of goitre and thyroid disease.In the mid-1990s, around 47 percent of population suffered from goitre. Today, that number has fallen well below 6 percent.

Around 61% of the worlds employed population is in informal employment. But the informal sectors lack legal courage, formal recognition, access to market, and finance.

The Cabinet Committee on Public Purchase on Wednesday approved eight proposals, including the import of 1.3 million metric tons of crude oil and 105,000 metric tons of fertilizer from foreign sources.

Industries Minister Nurul Majid Mahmud Humayun on Thursday called for concerted efforts to sustain entrepreneurs and employment in the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) sector during the coronavirus pandemic.

The ingredients of liquid refined tannery waste of Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC) following the standards set for it by the Environment Department, said KM Ali Azam, Secretary of the Industries Ministry.

KM Ali Azam has joined as the new Secretary of the Industries Ministry.

The Industries Ministry on Wednesday stated that considering the country’s national economy, the production, supply, marketing, and sale of tobacco products should continue.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Tuesday urged the authorities concerned to suspend production, supply, marketing, and sale of all kinds of tobacco products in Bangladesh to help fight against coronavirus.

National Tubes Limited (NTL), the only pipe producing company owned by the government, has started to make profit in recent years.