Policy on compensation for coalmine victims soon
M Azizur Rahman | Sunday, 15 March 2009
The government has taken steps to frame a policy on providing compensation to coalmine victims to ensure uninterrupted operation at all the mines and safeguard the country's future energy security, officials said Saturday.
The compensation policy will spell out packages for those affected from both open-pit and underground coalmining across the country, they said.
The government has initiated the move to adopt the compensation policy amid prolonged debates over compensation and rehabilitation of the country's coalmine victims that has been stunting development of the coal sector for years.
An alarming 11-day production halt, until last week, in the country's lone operational Barapukuria coalmine in northern Dinajpur risking power generation from the country's only 250 megawatt (MW) coal-fired power plant at the mine-mouth has also prompted the government to frame the policy, a senior energy ministry official said.
Locals living in the Barapukuria underground coalmine vicinity resisted all operations from February 25-March 7 last demanding compensation against land subsidence of topsoil inside the coalmine area.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) proposals worth several billions dollars remained pending for the past several years due to indecisiveness from the successive governments.
"This time the energy ministry has already initiated works to formulate the policy to recompense each and every affected including the landowners, dwellers and those earning their livelihood using the lands of the coalmine areas," Energy Secretary Mohammad Mohsin told the FE.
Even the squatters living in the coalmine areas would be compensated and relocated, he said. There would be sufficient compensation packages and relocations to the victims to ensure satisfaction of all the affected.
Monetary support along with relocations and rehabilitation of the affected from the mining sites would be the crux of compensation policy, Mr Mohsin said.
The policy would narrate the method of paying compensation, timing and the extent of the damages to their property, said a senior energy ministry official.
A committee headed by energy ministry senior official Ahmed Ullah has been constituted to expedite preparation of the draft of the compensation policy.
It has already visited the Barapukuria underground coalmine and its vicinity and had discussions with the locals to attain necessary inputs for drafting the policy.
Land subsidence at the Barapukuria coalmine vicinity was first reported in the initial year of initiating coal production from the mine in 2005.
Since then the incidence of land subsidence occurred on several occasions with the latest in January 2009, immediately after taking office by the incumbent government, was the worst.
Standing crops and infrastructures like houses and schools were affected by the land subsidence that ranged upto four feet in some places in the mining area, a senior official of the state-owned Barapukuria Coal Mining Company Ltd (BCMCL) said.
Chinese contractors engaged with the maintenance and operation of the Barapukuria coalmine had also sought huge compensation from BCMCL, he added.
The aggrieved locals, however, later cooled down and allowed production in the coalmine after a closed-door meeting with the government high-ups in the BCMCL office.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who is also in charge of the energy ministry, had sent the Energy Adviser Toufique-e-Elahi Chowdhury, State Minister for Energy Shamsul Haque Tuku and State Minister for Forest and Environment Mostafizur Rahman to the mine site to quell the aggrieved.
The compensation policy will spell out packages for those affected from both open-pit and underground coalmining across the country, they said.
The government has initiated the move to adopt the compensation policy amid prolonged debates over compensation and rehabilitation of the country's coalmine victims that has been stunting development of the coal sector for years.
An alarming 11-day production halt, until last week, in the country's lone operational Barapukuria coalmine in northern Dinajpur risking power generation from the country's only 250 megawatt (MW) coal-fired power plant at the mine-mouth has also prompted the government to frame the policy, a senior energy ministry official said.
Locals living in the Barapukuria underground coalmine vicinity resisted all operations from February 25-March 7 last demanding compensation against land subsidence of topsoil inside the coalmine area.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) proposals worth several billions dollars remained pending for the past several years due to indecisiveness from the successive governments.
"This time the energy ministry has already initiated works to formulate the policy to recompense each and every affected including the landowners, dwellers and those earning their livelihood using the lands of the coalmine areas," Energy Secretary Mohammad Mohsin told the FE.
Even the squatters living in the coalmine areas would be compensated and relocated, he said. There would be sufficient compensation packages and relocations to the victims to ensure satisfaction of all the affected.
Monetary support along with relocations and rehabilitation of the affected from the mining sites would be the crux of compensation policy, Mr Mohsin said.
The policy would narrate the method of paying compensation, timing and the extent of the damages to their property, said a senior energy ministry official.
A committee headed by energy ministry senior official Ahmed Ullah has been constituted to expedite preparation of the draft of the compensation policy.
It has already visited the Barapukuria underground coalmine and its vicinity and had discussions with the locals to attain necessary inputs for drafting the policy.
Land subsidence at the Barapukuria coalmine vicinity was first reported in the initial year of initiating coal production from the mine in 2005.
Since then the incidence of land subsidence occurred on several occasions with the latest in January 2009, immediately after taking office by the incumbent government, was the worst.
Standing crops and infrastructures like houses and schools were affected by the land subsidence that ranged upto four feet in some places in the mining area, a senior official of the state-owned Barapukuria Coal Mining Company Ltd (BCMCL) said.
Chinese contractors engaged with the maintenance and operation of the Barapukuria coalmine had also sought huge compensation from BCMCL, he added.
The aggrieved locals, however, later cooled down and allowed production in the coalmine after a closed-door meeting with the government high-ups in the BCMCL office.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who is also in charge of the energy ministry, had sent the Energy Adviser Toufique-e-Elahi Chowdhury, State Minister for Energy Shamsul Haque Tuku and State Minister for Forest and Environment Mostafizur Rahman to the mine site to quell the aggrieved.