Fate of 3,392 MT local coal reserve hangs in balance

The fate of local coal is hanging in the balance as government has no clear cut policy on the issue although Bangladesh has 3,392million tonnes of quality coal reserves.
Despite having a huge coal reserve in the country, the government is importing coal from abroad to run coal fired Payra Power Plant that needed about 40 lakh tonnes of coal (per annum). Not only for Payra, the government had also starts talk with Coal India to import coal to run the proposed Rampal Power Plant.
"We are in talks with Coal India for procuring coal. Our proposed plants are likely to be ready within the next couple of years. We would require around 4 million tonnes of coal every year," a senior official of Power development Board (PDB) said.
When asked the State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources about the use of our local coal, he said they are working on it, without elaborating.
However, the government formed nine committees in the last 12 years to form a coal policy, all committees have submitted their reports but it failed to manage the government to take any decision in adapting any coal policy, or open the report for public.
"Coal is a political issue here, if it was an environmental issue than what about the Rampal 1,320 MW coal fired power project, different right bodies urged the government to scrap the deal, but has it
happened. So the fact lies not with the environment issue," Former Energy Adviser Dr M Tamim said.
He said coal-based power plant is the cheapest of the projects, actually there are international politics over the issue and if we will not take any decision on coal soon than we have to face huge difficulties in future.
"We don't know what our destination is, we are walking on a 'trial and error' basis in the energy sector, which are mostly influenced or guided by popular public opinion not based on logic or science,' he said.
National Energy Policy said that the total coal reserves are 3,392million tonnes, contained in five fields including Barapukuria with around 300 million tonnes, Phulbari with 400 million tonnes, Jamalganj containing 1,000 million tonnes, Dighipara contained 865 million tonnes (approximately) and 450 million tonnes at Khalaspir. Of these resources, 492 million tonnes are estimated to be recoverable.
However, coal is being produced commercially only from the Barapukuria underground coal mine in Dinajpur district, we developed this field spending Tk 1,500 in 2005, but we are producing around 0.8 million tonnes of coal per year from this mine. We do not have any aggressive plan to extract more coal from here to make the project viable.
According to the Energy Ministry, spending about Tk 20 lakh a feasibility study has been completed at Phulbari Coal mine, however, an open-pit mine in nearby Phulbari was aborted in 2006 in the wake of mass protest by the local people in Dinajpur. However, a Tk 120 crore feasibility work is going on at Dighipara coal field, now the question is why the government is investing money here or using foreign companies to work here to do the job (the foreign company claimed that it spend around $US 80 million till November 2019).
It is not at all a correct decision not to extract coal from our mines, actually we don't have any plan in this regard, the government said that they will use 99 per cent imported coal in coal based power plants although we have develop our mines. The idea of importing coal is an expensive one, health hazardous as well as concern for the environment, as coal transportation is a risky thing for a country like Bangladesh, where river draft is a huge problem.
"Aiming to extract our coal we established Barapukuria Coal Mining Company with the Chinese bidder company, in the first phase we engaged them (Chinese) to develop the mine, our aim was to know the knowhow of the Chinese technology, it was okayed..but after 18 years we are still dependent on foreign experts, our coal mine people have no capacity to extract one kg of coal from the mine, they are sitting there only for purchasing coal from the bidder, they failed to achieve any techno-knowledge from the bidder, it was a blunder as we are giving 100 per cent facilities to the coal people for the last 18 years, why?" Prof Dr Badrul Imam asked.
CBA Energy Adviser Prof Samsul Alam said, "We need a very clear-cut coal policy and develop our coal fields for our own use. We need to go for horizontal expansion of Barapukuria Coal Mine and mix our local coal with the imported one for the sake of the survival of our coal industry, he added.