SoEs urged to buy hard rocks from Madhyapara granite mine
Tuesday, 25 September 2007
M Azizur Rahman
The Energy and Mineral Resources Division (EMRD) has requested the state-owned enterprise (SoEs) to purchase their requirement of hard rocks from the state-run Madhyapara granite mine to sustain the mine's commercial viability.
The EMRD request came in an inter-ministerial meeting Sunday last, which was arranged to find out ways to salvage the country's lone hard rock mining project situated at Madhyapara in the country's northern Dinajpur from financial crisis.
The SoEs that were requested to purchase Madhyapara hard rock include Bangladesh Railway (BR), Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB), Public Works Department (PWD) and Roads and Highways (R&H).
Sources said the Tk 13 billion state-owned Madhyapara hard rock mining project has been facing difficulties arising from inadequate marketing of hard rocks being extracted from the mine.
"Some 135,000 tonnes of hard rocks is now stockpiled at the mine premises and the amount of unutilised rocks is mounting every day," Energy and Mineral Resources Division (EMRD) secretary AMM Nasir Uddin told the FE.
Hard rock dusts of around 500 tonnes are also in stock at the mine mouth.
Reluctance to purchase hard rocks by the clients is pushing up the amount of stockpiled hard rocks at the Madhyapara mine being run by the Madhyapara Granite Mining Company Ltd (MGMCL), said the EMRD secretary.
The government initiated the project in 1994 aiming that the SoEs including BR, BWDB, PWD and R&H would purchase granite from the Madhyapara mine for their usages.
But none of these SoEs purchased hard rock from the Madhyapara leading to stock piling of huge quantity of granites at the mine mouth, it was alleged.
Currently extraction is being carried out on the basis of one shift a day with the production of 5,500 tonnes.
But it has the arrangement for conducting extraction works in three-shifts per day resulting in augmenting its production by three times, a senior MGMCL official said.
The mine has the potential reserve of around 70 million tonnes of hard rocks for extraction in the next 48 years.
The Madhyapara mine area spans over 1.2 square kilometres and has a reserve of around 174 million tonnes of hard rock and granite.
The annual demand for hard rock in the country is now around 2.5 million tones and most of the demand is met by import.
The North Korean Namnam prepared and developed the mine after working over 12 years under North Korean supplier's credit.
The original project cost in the first project profile (PP) was Tk. 650 crore but it later rose to around Tk 13 billion due to repeated delays by Namnam to complete the project works.
The Energy and Mineral Resources Division (EMRD) has requested the state-owned enterprise (SoEs) to purchase their requirement of hard rocks from the state-run Madhyapara granite mine to sustain the mine's commercial viability.
The EMRD request came in an inter-ministerial meeting Sunday last, which was arranged to find out ways to salvage the country's lone hard rock mining project situated at Madhyapara in the country's northern Dinajpur from financial crisis.
The SoEs that were requested to purchase Madhyapara hard rock include Bangladesh Railway (BR), Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB), Public Works Department (PWD) and Roads and Highways (R&H).
Sources said the Tk 13 billion state-owned Madhyapara hard rock mining project has been facing difficulties arising from inadequate marketing of hard rocks being extracted from the mine.
"Some 135,000 tonnes of hard rocks is now stockpiled at the mine premises and the amount of unutilised rocks is mounting every day," Energy and Mineral Resources Division (EMRD) secretary AMM Nasir Uddin told the FE.
Hard rock dusts of around 500 tonnes are also in stock at the mine mouth.
Reluctance to purchase hard rocks by the clients is pushing up the amount of stockpiled hard rocks at the Madhyapara mine being run by the Madhyapara Granite Mining Company Ltd (MGMCL), said the EMRD secretary.
The government initiated the project in 1994 aiming that the SoEs including BR, BWDB, PWD and R&H would purchase granite from the Madhyapara mine for their usages.
But none of these SoEs purchased hard rock from the Madhyapara leading to stock piling of huge quantity of granites at the mine mouth, it was alleged.
Currently extraction is being carried out on the basis of one shift a day with the production of 5,500 tonnes.
But it has the arrangement for conducting extraction works in three-shifts per day resulting in augmenting its production by three times, a senior MGMCL official said.
The mine has the potential reserve of around 70 million tonnes of hard rocks for extraction in the next 48 years.
The Madhyapara mine area spans over 1.2 square kilometres and has a reserve of around 174 million tonnes of hard rock and granite.
The annual demand for hard rock in the country is now around 2.5 million tones and most of the demand is met by import.
The North Korean Namnam prepared and developed the mine after working over 12 years under North Korean supplier's credit.
The original project cost in the first project profile (PP) was Tk. 650 crore but it later rose to around Tk 13 billion due to repeated delays by Namnam to complete the project works.