Recasting coal policy
Friday, 17 August 2007
Ataur Rahman
AS it happens with the spread of education in any nation, the government in this country is no longer the sole reservoir of wisdom on the state matters. It is simultaneously a challenge and an enormous advantage for the government. I find it particularly enchanting when I read diverse criticisms, suggestions and views in our newspapers from educated Bangladeshis at home and abroad on the draft coal policy. They have heated up the debate on the draft.
One Bangladeshi professor of geology, who teaches in the Lock Haven University of the USA, has ballooned the current draft as a trash. He has mentioned, "On the one hand, the draft emphasizes the need for national capacity building, and on the other, it goes to great lengths to show calculations for royalties from coal exports and sales by lessees". He has asserted in his critical article that the coal policy has to be an integral part of an overall comprehensive energy strategy covering all existing and potential renewable and non-renewable energy sources. Pointing out the incongruities of the draft, he has called for revising it by removing its inaccuracies, discrepancies and inconsistencies.
Does any expert or senior official having good knowledge about mining of coal, its uses and processes of converting it in various forms of energy in the Energy Division keep track of all the critical views and suggestions in articles being continuously published in local newspapers and put on the internet for meaningfully improving the draft coal policy? If they overlook these out of apathy or indifference, no policy, whoever makes it, will receive wide public approval for ultimate smooth enforcement. In spite of their all other lapses, Bangladeshis are broadly patriots.
AS it happens with the spread of education in any nation, the government in this country is no longer the sole reservoir of wisdom on the state matters. It is simultaneously a challenge and an enormous advantage for the government. I find it particularly enchanting when I read diverse criticisms, suggestions and views in our newspapers from educated Bangladeshis at home and abroad on the draft coal policy. They have heated up the debate on the draft.
One Bangladeshi professor of geology, who teaches in the Lock Haven University of the USA, has ballooned the current draft as a trash. He has mentioned, "On the one hand, the draft emphasizes the need for national capacity building, and on the other, it goes to great lengths to show calculations for royalties from coal exports and sales by lessees". He has asserted in his critical article that the coal policy has to be an integral part of an overall comprehensive energy strategy covering all existing and potential renewable and non-renewable energy sources. Pointing out the incongruities of the draft, he has called for revising it by removing its inaccuracies, discrepancies and inconsistencies.
Does any expert or senior official having good knowledge about mining of coal, its uses and processes of converting it in various forms of energy in the Energy Division keep track of all the critical views and suggestions in articles being continuously published in local newspapers and put on the internet for meaningfully improving the draft coal policy? If they overlook these out of apathy or indifference, no policy, whoever makes it, will receive wide public approval for ultimate smooth enforcement. In spite of their all other lapses, Bangladeshis are broadly patriots.