Daycare centres to face Tk 1.0m fine for lacking security

Daycare centres for children in Bangladesh will have to pay as much as Tk 1.0 million in fine for failure to provide desired security to the children.

The cabinet approved in principle a draft of ‘Shishu Dibajatna Kendra Ain 2020 (or children daycare centre act, 2020) on Monday keeping the provision, report BSS and bdnews24.com.

The draft law was approved during weekly cabinet meeting at the secretariat with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.

The approval was given with an aim to bring daycare centres under a legal framework, particularly ensuring the security of working mothers' children enrolled in such facilities, Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam said  at a news briefing at following the cabinet meeting.

He said the draft act suggested stern punitive actions for failure to provide appropriate security to the minor children in daycare centres.

“If the daycare centres fail to provide desired security to the children (at their disposal), they could be fined as high as Tk 10 lakh (Tk 1.0 million),” said the government’s top bureaucrat.

Anwarul said in its regular weekly meeting, also gave nod to another two draft acts, one for setting up two new science and technology universities at Lakshmipur and Bogura.

The laws would be called “Lakshmipur Science and Technology University Act, 2020” and “Bogura Science and Technology Act, 2020″.

Anwarul said the government earlier decided to regulate the daycare centres under a law as a larger number of mothers having minor children were now working in public, statuary and private organisations or engaged in businesses.

According to the draft law the daycare centres could be established by the government itself or by entities with commercial purpose with their own findings.

Anwarul said such facilities could as well be established with business houses Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds to be availed by government offices, statuary and autonomous bodies or non-government entities and individuals.

He said the proposed law did not compel anyone or any organisation to set up the daycare centres but suggested several punitive measures for failure to maintain the guidelines in building and running the facilities.

Anwarul said the law made mandatory the registration of daycare centres and in default the facilities would have to pay a fine of Taka 50,000 and subsequently they would be fined Taka 5,000 for every day until they could furnish registration certificates.

He said if any daycare centre hides any information relating to spread contagious diseases in the centre, the authorities concerned will be sentenced for six months and fined an amount as high as Taka 1, 00,000.

Replying to a query, he said, after the passage of the law, a rule would be formulated to detail the daycare centres service standards including issues related to nutrition, health, security and safety, treatment, entertainment, education and environment management.

But, he said, the law proposed setting up of breast feeding corner in every daycare centres and necessary initiatives to take care of the special child such as autistic and especially able children.

The cabinet was apprised of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s joining the Heads of State and Government Summit” of the 25th Annual Conference of Parties (COP25) at Madrid in Spain on December 2 last.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina presiding over the weekly cabinet meeting at the secretariat on Monday. -PID Photo