International buyers have also been asking the BGMEA, the apex body in the apparel sector, to go tough against the factories being run with poor fire safety measures, industry insiders said.

Following the KTS Garment inferno in Chittagong that left at least 55 workers dead, a dozen of foreign buyers as well as local stakeholders, including some NGOs again raised the compliance issues with the BGMEA.

They have sent a number of e-mails to the BGMEA and advised it to take immediate action against the noncompliant factories.

The apparel industry leaders, taking lessons from the factory fire in Chittagong and prompted by the buyers' pressure, formed at least 10 monitoring teams to take video footage of some 2,500 garment factories in Dhaka, Narayanganj, Savar and Gazipur districts.

A BGMEA director will lead each of these monitoring teams that will work dividing into separate zonal groups, sources in the BGMEA said. Two other BGMEA officials have been made members of each monitoring team.

A BGMEA leader said the teams will start their work from next week. Similar teams would be constituted for Chittagong and other areas of the country very soon to inspect the factories, he said.

When contacted, BGMEA Vice President (Finance) Shahadat Hossain Chowdhury Arun told the news agency that the teams will visit all the factories across the country in phases.

"They will collect the video footages of the factories and then the footages will be examined by the BGMEA authorities," he said adding that the teams will submit their day-to-day reports to the BGMEA headquarter.

The apparel sector leader also said no factory would be spared if any gate is found locked and if the factory lacks adequate fire extinguishing equipment.

"If the BGMEA vigilance team found any gate of a factory closed, they would fine that factory Tk 10,000 for first time while Tk 50,000 for second time, and cancel the BGMEA membership for the third time offence," he said.

Earlier, the BGMEA on Tuesday asked the owners of garment factories to keep all the gates of their factories open during working hours or face punitive actions.

For violation of the fire-safety precautions by their existing and potential new members, the owners would have to pay the penalty that includes fines up to Tk 50,000 and expulsion from the association as an extreme action.

The BGMEA also decided to visit their member factories regularly to ensure that proper fire-safety measures are in place at the factories across the country.

In a board meeting, the apparel sector body decided that each factory would have to construct two stairs and keep open the gates of their premises during working hours.