The government, as it has been reported in a section of the media, has given its thumb of approval to the open-pit mining method for coal extraction. It wants to begin work on extraction of coal within the next three months from the northern chunk of the Barapukuria coal deposit. The mining is expected to start after getting a model for water management of the proposed mine next month.
Reports say a 1,300 megawatt (MW) power plant is expected to be installed at the mouth of the Barapukuria mine. The work on extraction of coal and construction of power plant will be carried out simultaneously. And the government hopes to extract coal from the mine within five years.
Such a decision has, however, been long overdue in the aftermath of the controversial events that occurred at Phulbari in 2006. The then BNP-led government engaged Asia Energy, later renamed Global Coal Management (GCM), to mine the Phulbari coal deposit through the open-pit method in 2005. In the face of widespread protest against the open-pit mining method, the project was postponed the following year. Three people were killed and hundreds, injured in the bloody clashes in Phulbari.
What led the present government to take such a 'surprise' decision of going through open-pit mining is still not clear. But it is a fact that extraction of coal is otherwise an urgent need for the country. There is no viable alternative to coal extraction to get rid of the prevailing acute power shortage.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, to mention here, did inform a meeting early last year that the coal deposits would be kept reserved for the next generation. Imported coal, as she said then, will be made available to generate electricity for the country's use. But a month later, she told parliament that her government was planning to set up coal-fired power plants after extracting the coal from the country's five coal mines. Back in 2006, the Prime Minister at a public meeting at Phulbari expressed her stand against open-pit coal mining.
However, some experts -- environmentalists included - are now questioning the merit of the government's decision to go for open-pit mining before addressing the environmental concerns. Experts and rights' activists in Bangladesh have for long been propagating, rightly or wrongly, against open-pit mining on the ground that it will destroy the underground water table, agriculture and habitat.
None will disagree that the extraction of coal should not come at the expense of any irreparable damage to life and livelihood, ecology and environment. But facts should be ascertained first, very clearly and convincingly, about the possibility of any such loss. Otherwise, the claims by the 'environmentalists' will stand to no reason and will make only a hollow sound. And then, those will be too costly for the nation that is now suffering from an acute energy shortage. Coal deposits, kept unexplored beneath the earth for too long a period, may in the foreseeable future turn out to be useless. This is more so, in a situation where technology is advancing fast for exploiting the potential of renewable energy at affordable costs.
The question that now comes to the fore is whether the government is taking the decision on the Barapukuria coal deposit without properly weighing the pros and cons of the whole issue. However, the latest decision has come after a long lapse of about seven years, following the posting of the last draft coal policy on the web-site. This period should otherwise be considered quite a reasonable one to complete the exercise about costs and benefits of coal extraction by methods that do not run afoul of the needs for environmental protection, safety of ecology and livelihood, and rehabilitation of displaced people and their habitation.
In this context, the issues relating to concerns over, or any misgiving about, open-pit mining method should be addressed or removed. If this is done credibly, the people will not oppose the decision. For this purpose, the authorities concerned will need to come forward with a clear-cut statement on the issue.
The fact, however, remains that no coal policy is required for starting the development of any coalmine; there is already a national legislation on mining covering both the underground and open-pit methods. The British company that was earlier given the contract for Phulbari mining, did carry out recently a study on the mining project. According to the findings of the report, the open-cut method is technically and economically the only viable method to extract coal in Phulbari, regardless of the advantages and disadvantages of the various types of mining.
It found the method to be appropriate, in consideration of the given geological, hydro-geological and geotechnical conditions of the deposit. Underground mining in Phulbari, its findings revealed, will help extract only a total of 20 to 40 million tonnes, out of an aggregate deposit of 572 million tonnes, in the country's five coal mine-fields. There will also be many technical challenges that are associated with health and safety risks, if underground mining method is opted for.
Furthermore, the rehabilitation of the affected people in areas, near or around the coal-mine site, will not take time, given the favourable climatic conditions of Bangladesh and fertile nature of its soil, according to the findings of the study. The mining, the study notes, can advance gradually from the north towards the south and the mine area after coal extraction is backfilled and rehabilitated to productive uses, including that of agriculture. It concluded by noting that an extensive monitoring system can be put in place throughout the mining and post-mining periods to ensure that the project objectives are being met and post-mining use of the site becomes beneficial and sustainable.
However, some quarters have contested such a claim, stating that there is no instance of open-pit coal mining in a fertile area having a high population density and a huge water layer over the coal deposits. However, the government's plan to install domestic coal-based power plants with a total capacity of around 12,000 megawatt (MW), as they claim, will require more than 30 million tonnes of coal a year. This will necessitate extraction of coal by open-pit method. It will not be possible to meet such a huge demand by extracting coal through underground method which will produce around 5.0 million tonnes of coal a year only from the five coal deposits in Bangladesh, they said.
The coal industry of Bangladesh is still in its infancy with the country's known coal reserves of 2.7 billion tonnes. Out of this, 1.4 billion tonnes are recoverable. In a scenario of gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate at 8.0 per cent, Bangladesh will need 450 million tonnes of coal a year to generate the required amount of energy. Country's five coalfields can cater to the needs until 2030. As such, the government has hardly any option to manoeuvre other than going for extensive mining to meet the ever-increasing demand for electricity.
szkhan@dhaka.net
Open-pit mining gets approval, finally
Shahiduzzaman Khan | Published: August 14, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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