Online Desk: Bangladesh Chamber of Industries (BCI) has demanded immediate action against extortion in the transport sector saying that illegal toll collection by different groups are pushing up food prices.

“Although Bangladesh is self-sufficient in food, food inflation is the highest. One of the reasons behind it is extortion in goods transportation,” said BCI president Anwar-ul Alam Chowdhury (Parvez) when he was leading a delegation to meet Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan at his office at the ministry on Sunday.

If illegal extortions are checked, the price of goods will come down a lot, he told the home minister.

He also mentioned that currently, some unruly groups called “Kishore Gangs” are deteriorating the law and order situation in the country and they are behind most of the crimes in Dhaka.

He also drew the attention of the home minister to the poor traffic management of Dhaka city and the entire country. Discipline in the traffic system will actually reduce time,cost and also save fuel, he added.

The BCI president said Bangladesh Bank does not need to adopt contractionary policy if inflation remains at a tolerable level.

Currently, due to the various steps taken by Bangladesh Bank, the dollar current account has become positive, which is promising and the financial account will also become positive in the next few months, he noted.

At the beginning of the meeting, the Minister was presented with floral greetings from the BCI Board of Directors and a frame with BCI’s ‘My Product My Country’ logo.

The BCI leaders said the industrial sector of the country is currently going through a challenging time.

Any industrial company in the country is running at 60-70 percent of its capacity, sales of all companies have dropped due to high inflation, low gas pressure, high interest rate of loans and banks are not able to provide proper support. All together, the domestic industry is facing tough challenges, they said.

According to BCI, the Home Minister patiently listened to the statements of the directors of BCI and said that the government is aware of the state of industries in the country.

“We want to increase investment in the country and increase employment. Because if the country’s industries survive, the country’s economy will survive”, he told the BCI leaders.

In the meeting, senior vice-president of BCI Preeti Chakraborty, vice-president Mohammad Yunus, board of directors, Shahidul Islam Neeru, Dr. Delwar Hossain Raja, Abul Kalam Bhuiyan, Zia Haider Mithu, Mizanur Rahman, Ruslan Nasir, Nazmul Anwar, Sohana Rauf Chowdhury, Md Salim Jahan and Additional Secretary (Political and ICT Division) AKM Tipu Sultan of the Home Ministry were present.