In its preliminary reports, the Jute Commission has strongly urged the government to bestow the jute industry with a status of 'agro based industry', entitled to enjoy the financial and other benefits under the government provisions, like the country's other agro-based industries.
The Commission even advised the government to initiate measures to enhance jute production and to guarantee availability of the same to the farmers at reasonable price by restraining the middlemen and announcing tax breaks and such other concessions for the sector.
Dr Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad, Chairman of the Commission submitted the Commission's report to Jute Minister Abdul Latif Siddique.
Siddique said that, on finalization, he would place the Commission's report before the Cabinet for its review within two months, in order that the country could have its own Jute Policy.
The other key suggestions by the Commission include, measures for jute and jute goods exports and creation of a domestic buffer stock of jute, so as to stabilize its prices and thereby to relieve the troubled sector and to regain its lost glory.