Briquette getting popular as lower cost alternative fuel
Thursday, 11 March 2010
RAJSHAHI, Mar 10 (BSS): Briquette, a hard block made from coal dust, is gradually getting popular among the city dwellers as an alternative fuel, for its relatively low price, for household as well as commercial cooking.
More and more fixed and low income groups are taking to the alternative fuel due to escalating prices of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), kerosene as well as firewood.
Some, among the affluent families, are also using it for the cost advantage. In BSCIC industrial estate, three factories are busy producing briquette using coal dust, coal wastes out of kilns and arrowroot as raw materials.
Brickfields are selling a sack of 50-kg coal dusts for Tk 120.
Rehana Briquette Factory owner Anisur Rahman Master told the news agency that three kilograms of arrowroots is mixed with 400 kilograms of coal dust to get the low cost fuel.
The demand for the newfound alternative fuel was increasing due to its relatively low price, he said.
Retail shops were established at different places in the city to sell the cheap fuel.
Not only that, he said, the quality of fire derived was also better, as it gives no black spot to utensils side by side with adjudging it as environment- friendly.
But during rainy season, the briquette factories go out of production as the brickfields remain closed snapping coal dust supply. Housewife Pronoti Sarker of Ghoramara area said monthly spending on fuel for cooking for her family of six members dropped to Tk 300 from Tk 1000 earlier cost by LPG.
More and more fixed and low income groups are taking to the alternative fuel due to escalating prices of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), kerosene as well as firewood.
Some, among the affluent families, are also using it for the cost advantage. In BSCIC industrial estate, three factories are busy producing briquette using coal dust, coal wastes out of kilns and arrowroot as raw materials.
Brickfields are selling a sack of 50-kg coal dusts for Tk 120.
Rehana Briquette Factory owner Anisur Rahman Master told the news agency that three kilograms of arrowroots is mixed with 400 kilograms of coal dust to get the low cost fuel.
The demand for the newfound alternative fuel was increasing due to its relatively low price, he said.
Retail shops were established at different places in the city to sell the cheap fuel.
Not only that, he said, the quality of fire derived was also better, as it gives no black spot to utensils side by side with adjudging it as environment- friendly.
But during rainy season, the briquette factories go out of production as the brickfields remain closed snapping coal dust supply. Housewife Pronoti Sarker of Ghoramara area said monthly spending on fuel for cooking for her family of six members dropped to Tk 300 from Tk 1000 earlier cost by LPG.