Paucity of coal puts Rangpur brick kilns in limbo

RANGPUR, Dec 27:  The brick kilns in Rangpur district are facing an acute paucity of coal this year, for this reason hundreds of brick fields  are yet to burn raw bricks even in the peak season. Consequently thousands of brick kiln workers turned jobless and construction works are being seriously hampered.
Generally brick burning season starts from November and continues till April. But this season the brick kiln owners of the region are apprehensive about burning raw bricks owing to coal shortage.
According to sources, there are some 155 brickfields in 8 upazilas under the district. These brickfields are totally dependant on coal supplied by Baropukuria Coal Mining Company Ltd (BCMCL) and imported from India.
Sources said that the BCMCL is yet to supply coal to the brickfields across the country as the production at the mine remained suspended for six months. A big portion of the demand of coal is met by imported coal from India. But as coal export from India had remained suspended for long kiln owners were facing severe crisis. Though coal import from India resumed recently, it is still inadequate against the demand, sources alleged.
While visiting different brick kilns at Sadar, Mithapukur and Badarganj upazila it was found that the kilns completed all their tasks but are sitting idle due to lack of coal.
Mozammel Haque, president of District Brickfields Owners Association said they might incur huge losses if coal supply is not resumed in full swing within next 15 to 20 days. Only 10 to 12 kilns could ignite their furnaces for manufacturing bricks as they had a small stock of coal of last year, he added.
Talking to The Financial Express a good number of brick kiln owners expressed their dissatisfaction over the prevailing situation saying that already two months of the season  almost elapsed but yet they are concerned as they have already spent a huge amount of money for purchasing soil for making raw bricks, labour payment and transport", they said.
Moreover, an acute dearth of bricks has been prevailing in region for long as a result construction works of a large number of establishments are severely being hindered.
Sabu Mia (40), a brick field worker at Chikli area under Taraganj upazila told the FE that as brick manufacturing remained suspended he has become unemployed. As a result he has been passing hard days in near starvation. A number of brick kiln workers echoed the same tone.
A number of brick field owners including Nur Alom of KTL bricks,Azizul of RBL bricks and Labu of HBL bricks under sadar upazila  told FE that their kilns are facing acute scarcity of coal. In addition, the raw bricks, which have already been prepared with mud, will be immense loss for the owners, they added. If they fail to get adequate coal soon they might have to suffer huge losses this season, they apprehended.
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