To increase power generation: Govt plans open-pit coal mining

bdnews24.com :
To increase power generation, the government plans open-pit coal mining despite some opposition to this in the country. That will make available coal, some of which will however have to be imported.
Petrobangla Director (Operation and Mines) Md Quamruzzman hinted to open-pit coal mining in future , while talking of how to meet future power demands for the country at a meeting on Sunday.
Quamruzzaman said, 53 percent of power, out of targeted production of 20,000MW planned in the Vision 2021, will be coal-based thermal power. To meet the demand, the country will have to produce 10 million tonnes of coal per year.
An estimated 4500 tonnes of coal are being produced from one mine through underground mining. There are five large coal mines with a combined reserve of 3.1 billion tonnes of coal, according to Petrobangla. But the government is yet to formulate a coal policy in the last one and a half decades. Petrobangla Director Quamruzzman informed the meeting about the progress of the open pit mining.
Works on hydro geological survey and water modelling
are going on in the northern part of Barapukuria in Dinajpur to extract coal through open pit mining, he said. A decision will be taken after getting the report in April, he added. About 75 percent of Bangladesh’s power is now to be generated from gas. For this, 72 percent of gas is being utilised. Less than 3 percent of power is being produced from coal.
But the present government during its previous term has laid the foundations of several big base-load coal power plants. The foundation of 1320 MW coal power plant was laid in Bagerhat’s Rampal under the joint venture of Bangladesh and India.
Orion and S Alam groups have been permitted to set up coal power plants in Dhaka, Khulna and Chittagong in the private sector.