The government is going to take a major decision for the country’s coal sector. According to an exclusive report published in this newspaper yesterday, like in the gas sector, in the coal sector also the government is mulling to have a Production Sharing Contract (PSC) with foreign companies through bilateral agreements as Bangladesh has technological as well as financial constraints to exploit the resources. According to the report, through the new contract, new rules and agreement will be formed to explore the country’s coal resources that are mostly located in the northern district of Dinajpur. The modality of the agreement in the PSC would facilitate an investor to take responsibility for technical and investment risk in the development of coal fields as his responsibility. Besides, the defined amount of coal that would be extracted per year according to the contract will be shared by the investor and the client who will get his share of coal free and the contractor’s share of coal will be paid for by the client.
It must be said that PSC is not very popular in the countries of the world in the coal sector. However and since Bangladesh has considerable reserve of coal but has certain technological restraints, it can positively go for having the provision of PSC in the draft National Coal Policy and extract the underground resource. But before doing that the government must elicit experts’ opinions in this regard to verify its positives and negatives. Coal is among the few natural resources of Bangladesh and proper utilisation of coal resources should be a major concern for all relevant people and entities. But it is sad to note here due to mismanagement and wrong timing of adjusting price of coal this year, a huge pile of it is now remaining unsold in Dinajpur’s Barapukuria coal field. Coal is not an exportable item in Bangladesh and the coal extracted from the country’s coal fields is mostly consumed by the brick-kilns of the country where use of woods is banned so that the remaining forest covers of the country is not lost further. On the other hand, Bangladesh also wants to have base-load mega coal-based power plants to meet the increasing demands of energy. Therefore, proper management of country’s coal resources— though use of coal is not environmentally healthy as it releases pollutants in air—is very crucial for Bangladesh and its economic development. That is why the country, before all, needs to have a comprehensive national coal policy.