Daily Star-DHL Business Awards
There is no doubt that the DS-DHL Annual Business Awards are the premier and most prestigious awards for the entrepreneurs and corporate entities of Bangladesh. While the recipients of the accolades are no doubt deserving, I have a feeling that these awards have missed out on two points.
First, I am disappointed that one, whose candidature is thoroughly deserved has not been considered for the last 8 years. This group fulfils all your criteria as they have pioneered a sector that is practically suitable for an agrarian economy like Bangladesh. They foster cultivation of indigenous raw materials; add manifold values to it through processing, thereby creating wealth; provide employment opportunities to the rural population by building rural facilities near growing areas, thereby inhibiting urban migration; earn considerable foreign exchange by exports of quality goods to over 70 countries; pay vast sums to the government exchequer as taxes, VAT etc and they are in the best borrowers (to my knowledge) category as far as bank loan repayments are concerned. They are also in the 'Blue Chip' category in the Stock Exchanges.
At the same time they pursue gender equality policies by employing women as far as possible and their growth curve over the last 15 years has been nothing short of phenomenal, akin to a F-16 taking off! I am referring, of course, to the PRAN-RFL Group.
Second, your commendable inclusion of a woman entrepreneur in the awards every year has encouraged mass replications, with women coming forward to play positive roles in the business world. This has encouraged me to place before you (for next year) another category that would benefit a large section of our population that is presently oppressed, suppressed and denied equal employment opportunities suitable for them.
They are the 14 million + (fully 10% of our population) disabled people of Bangladesh, a vast majority of whom are languishing in the bottom rung of the economic ladder because of the misconception that they are 'unemployable'. This is absurd, since 56% of employees where I work are persons with disabilities and we have no problem whatsoever. So we would welcome a DS-DHL Award in 2009 to the 'organisation that employs the largest number of differently-able people during the year' or 'one with the highest percentage of challenged people on their pay-roll'.
Food for thought, but it would definitely boost their economic independence and drag them up and out from their present description of being 'the poorest of the poor'.
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