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New law to ensure balanced mix of iodine in salt


Published : 14 Jun 2021 10:29 PM | Updated : 15 Jun 2021 12:48 AM

The Iodised Salt Bill, 2021 was passed in the Parliament on Monday (June 14), aiming to ensure balanced mix of iodine in salt and regulate the salt market in the country. 

Experts on nutrition expressed the hope that the fresh law, which will be effective after getting approval of the President, would increase adequately iodised salt coverage as the bill was passed in the Parliament with a provision of punishment for law violators. 

Industries Minister Nurul Majid Mahmud Humayun placed the bill, which was passed by voice vote in the House. The law will replace the ‘Iodine Deficiency Disease Prevention Act, 1989’.

The ‘Iodised Salt Bill, 2021’ was placed before Parliament on June 20 and it was sent to the respective parliamentary standing committee for further scrutiny. 

Industries Minister Nurul Majid Mahmud Humayun said that the government moved forward to enact the ‘Iodised Salt Act, 2021’ to strengthen the ability of the regulatory authorities for enforcing the salt iodisation. The bill was passed to improve national health outcomes through better monitoring and efficacy of salt iodisation programme in the country, he added. 

According to the proposed law, a 14-member National Salt Committee, headed by the Industries Secretary as its chairman, will be formed to supervise all the activities in this regard. The committee will monitor the production, processing, refining, storage, transportation and marketing of salt, ensuring proper iodine use in the salt, supply of iodine to the salt factories, regulating salt import, as well as to place recommendations over salt management policy.

Representative of the Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industry Corporation (BSCIC) will be member secretary of the national committee. There will also be a separate cell under the ministry to ensure the standard of iodine in the salt. 

If anyone wants to produce, process, store, import, supply salt or set up a salt factory, the person concerned will have to get registered under the fresh law. However, it would be considered an offence if anyone tries to import, produce, market or stock salt without registering beforehand, and he 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 court.

According to the bill, during the past decades, the country has done a remarkable job bringing down the numbers of goitre and thyroid-diseased patients. In the mid-1990s, around 47 per cent of population suffered from goitre. Today, that number has fallen well below 6 per cent.

Experts said that enactment of a fresh law over iodine in salt will be a milestone achievement in the way to achieve Universal Salt Iodisation (USI). 

Talking to the Bangladesh Post on Monday (June 14) after the passage of the bill in Parliament, Saiqa Siraj, Country Director of Nutrition International, said that the iodine is essential for human survival, especially during the first few years of a child’s life. Its deficiency impairs many people and kills many infants in the country every year. Against this backdrop, the passage of the bill in Parliament is appraisable, she added.

She hoped that the proposed law would increase adequately iodised salt coverage in the country. The expert on nutrition said that the ‘Iodised Salt Act, 2021’ will help increase access to an important micronutrient and improve the health condition of the population of the country.