Not all the families of Tazreen fire victims have received compensation and not all of the families who have been given compensation have received the full amount as yet.
Families of seven of the 59 identified victims have so far not been given any compensation and some of them have yet to get the aggregate amount of Tk 6 lakh.
At least 112 workers were killed in the fire at Tazreen Fashions Ltd at Ashulia on November 24, 2012 and 59 victims, of 48 families, could be identified so far.
The Prime Minister’s Office promised to give families of each of the victims Tk 2 lakh in compensation, the labour ministry Tk 1 lakh, the Bangladesh Association of Banks Tk 1 lakh and the Bangladesh Garment
Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association and Li & Fung Tk 2 lakh. The PMO is making the disbursement.
A PMO official said that preliminarily, they had prepared a list of 59 identified victims and the number could be rising.
The 48 families that have so far received compensation lost 52 of their members to the fire. One of the families lost four of its members to the fire and another family lost two of its members. The two families received compensation against each of the victims, officials said.
The PMO official said that the families of the remaining nine victims would be given compensation after the scrutiny of names of nominees.
He also said that the PMO had distributed Tk 6 lakh against each of the victims. But the family that lost four members claimed Tk 24 lakh but has so far received only Tk 15 lakh. The other family that claimed Tk 12 lakh for the death of two of its members has so far received only Tk 9 lakh.
The family of Gaffargaon in Mymensingh that lost two members to the fire — Mahmuda Kabir and Humayun Kabir — told New Age that they had so far received only Tk 9 lakh.
Mahmuda’s brother Sahadat Hossain said that they did not know whether they would get the remaining Tk 3 lakh.
Monsur Ali of Latifpur at Mithapukur in Rangpur who lost four members of his family got only Tk 15 lakh instead of Tk 24 lakh, local people said.
The upazila nirbahi officer, Harun-ur-Rashid, said that the family had received Tk 8 lakh from the Prime Minister’s Office, Tk 4 lakh from the labour ministry, Tk 1 lakh from the Bangladesh Association of Banks and Tk 2 lakh from the BGMEA and Li & Fung.
The family has yet to get Tk 6 lakh from the BGMEA and Li & Fung and Tk 3 lakh from the Association of Banks.
The Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association, however, said that they had issued bank cheques against 57 victims and they were sent to the PMO in various phases. The remaining two cheques were being sent.
The BGMEA’s joint secretary Jaglul Haider told New Age that the Prime Minister’s Office would contact the families who were yet to get the total of Tk 6  lakh and who were not given compensation in the first phase.
Association of Banks officials said that they had issued 44 cheques for Tk 1 lakh each in the first phase and the remaining 15 cheques were issued in the second phase on January 8.
BGMEA vice-president Md Siddiqur Rahman, however, said that the families of the 57 victims had already been given compensation. Families of the remaining two victims will get their compensation soon.
He said that the yet-to-be-identified families would be given compensation after the confirmation of their identity with DNA profiling.
Jannatul Ferdaous, daughter of Nasrin Bewa, who was killed in the Tazreen fire, told New Age that the body of her mother had been identified but the name was not included in the compensation list.
She alleged that they had deposited the token of the body to the local administration but their family was included not in the list.
The BGMEA official said that the name of Nasrin was somehow dropped and the name would be included.