The cabinet on Monday approved a proposal for constitution of the Bangladesh Communication Satellite Company (BCSC) Limited to smoothly operate the country's first-ever Bangabandhu Satellite-1.
The approval came at the regular weekly cabinet meeting held at Bangladesh Secretariat with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
Briefing reporters after the meeting, Cabinet Secretary Mohammad Shafiul Alam said Bangladesh is going to join the Satellite Club very soon as the process for launching the country's first-ever satellite named "Bangabandhu Satellite-1" has almost been completed.
"The satellite will be launched into the space very soon, and to operate it, a decision to form a company has been made," he said.
Alam further said the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications placed the proposal for formation of the company following the suggestions of those who will locally operate the Bangabandhu Satellite-1.
The cabinet secretary said the name of the company will be Bangladesh Communication Satellite Company (BCSC) Limited.
"The company will be formed with the authorised capital of Tk 50 billion and it will have Tk 5 billion shares," he said, adding the price of each share will be Tk 10.
Alam said in the Memorandum of Article, a proposal has been made to form an 11-member committee for the company, and all of its members will be government employees.
He said the post and telecommunications secretary and the managing
director of the BCSC Ltd will act as the chairman and the member secretary of the company respectively.
The other directors of the company will be the additional secretary of the ministry of post and telecommunications, representatives of the ministries of finance, information and defence and a representative of the Armed Forces Division, the chairman of SPARSO, the DG of Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Ltd and two other persons to be nominated by the government, Alam said.
The day's cabinet meeting also gave the final approval to the draft of "The Seeds Law, 2017" to make the existing law more time befitting.
The cabinet secretary said the draft law was formulated translating the original Seed Ordinance of 1977 into Bangla as well as making necessary amendment to it as per the directives of the Appellate Division of Bangladesh Supreme Court that had earlier declared all martial law time ordinances illegal.
According to the new draft law, a 25-member National Seed Board would be constituted with Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture as its Chairman, while Director General (Seed Wing) under the Ministry of Agriculture would be its Member Secretary.
The board will sit in meeting in every six months while it can also meet before than six months if necessary, Alam said.
About the function of the Board, the cabinet secretary said it will mainly focus on the control of seed quality.
He, however, said details of the function of the Seed Board would be fixed after formulation of necessary rules.
Alam also said there will be a Seed Certification Agency that will give permission and licence for seed dealership.
Besides, there will be a post of Seed Inspector who will visit the markets to inspect seed quality and dealership licence.
The cabinet secretary said creating any obstacle by any dealer or seed user to accomplish the lawful responsibility of seed inspector would be considered as punishable offence.
For such offence, he said, the concerned dealer or person would be sentenced to three months imprisonment or be fined Taka 50,000 or both the punishment, he said.
Alam said the punishment would be doubled in case of repetition of the offence.
Besides, a provision has also been kept in the proposed law to operate mobile court for enforcement of the law.
About import of the seeds from abroad, he said, permission would not be given to import seeds unless the packaging label and standard marks are not proper in terms of their quality.
Ministers and state ministers attended the meeting while secretaries concerned were present.
Source: http://en.prothom-alo.com/science-technology/news/152741/Govt-set-to-open-new-company-to-operate