Banglar Manush will surely use Banglar Koila

Ataus Samad

The present Caretaker Government is facing great many problems and it has to take appropriate decisions to resolve these. A question arises whether the present government had the jurisdiction to decisions on certain important issues. This is because of the fact that these matters relate to policy. The Constitution of the country has it that the Caretaker Administration will only perform day to day routine functions.
But to my mind, there are a lot of differences between the present Caretaker government and the one that has been spoken about in the country’s Constitution. The Constitution has it that elections to the Parliament will have to be held within 90 days of the dissolution of the last Parliament for any reason or the completion of its tenure. A Caretaker Administration would be in power to run the administration of the country in the meantime.
The Constitution has it that with the elected Prime Minister entering office, the Caretaker government will leave. As and when one reads these two articles of the constitution together one reaches the conclusion that the tenure of the Caretaker administration is just three months. Moreover, the two Caretaker governments of 1998 and 2001 completed their responsibilities of holding the elections within three months’ of taking change and left within that time. The country was well managed the day to day work of those administrations and they did not have to bother about policy matters. But things have become different for the present Caretaker Administration. The present government has established itself in power for at least two years. It is owing to this that the government has to take many important decisions relating to policy. For instance, there is the question of maintaining subsidies or not for tackling economic problems, asking for balance of power and the like. The matter I wish to raise relates to matter which some have suggested that the matter concerns a policy decision and as such it should be held up for the time being. The subject concerns the development of coal mines.
I have given this introduction because at the moment, Bangladesh has developed a coal mine at Barapukuria. But there have been many problems in the mine. It has been noticed that enough coals cannot be extracted from it. At many places the ground has been giving in. The thermal power station in the mine area has to make do with coal imported from neighboring India. And in order to keep the expenses down inferior quality coal is often imported. This has been harming both the power station and the environment.
Alongside this, the open mine policy in the neighboring Phulbari could not become effective owing to differences of opinion among the leassee, Messrs Asia Energy and the local people. At the root lies the question of relocating and resettling the inhabitants of the area when mining starts .The position is, therefore, that the country has to sit over the uncertainties of the Barapukuria and the deadlock over the proposed Phulbari mines. We see no sign of developing any new mine in the meantime.
Yet the fact remains that Bangladesh has coal and the country needs this resource for production of electricity. According to official data, there are five coal fields in the country. These are: Jamalganj in Joypurhat district, Barapukuria in Dinajpur district, Dighirpar and Phulbari in Dinajpur district and Khalashpir in Rangpur district. In view of the fact that the Jamalganj coal is in a depth of 900 meters , the possibilities of extraction and use of this coal is very thin. According to government estimates, the biggest quantum of coal is deposited here in the neighborhood of 1050 million tones. In the remaining mines some 1005 million tones of coal has been found in the remaining mines. The people now wish to know whether they can use this coal or not?
At the moment, I have before me a media release posted on a website of an organization called Aid Watch of Australia. It has been suggested there that the Australian government should prevent the Asian Development Bank from assisting the Phulbari coal mine project. The media release calls upon the Australian government not to support the Asian Development Bank in matters of Phulbari coal mine on the plea that the project would adversely affect the global ,climate as and when Bangladesh mines and uses its coal for itself. The media release says at one place, ‘Bangladesh will be one of the countries hardest hit by climate change and hundreds of thousands of people will be displaced by construction of this mine. It is also said in the media release ‘ Phulbari coal mine has been vigorously opposed by people’s groups within Bangladesh and NGO’s from around the world’. A committee was formed by the government to review the latest draft of coal policy. I was a member too. The Committee was headed by Mr. Abdul Matin Patwary, former Vice Chancellor of the Engineering University . We submitted a report to the government in January last. I feel that the government should do two things right now. The foremost is to announce that Bangladesh will mine its own coal and use it. The second is to publish in full the report of the review committee. I hope as and when this is done, all doubts and suspicions and the smokescreen created regarding coal will regarding coal will be removed and Bangladesh Government will be able to stand up to the propaganda by the foreign NGOs and use the country’s resources in the interest of the people of the country.

Source: http://weeklyeconomictimes.com/news-details.php?recordID=732
Date: 18 May 2008, Bangladesh