Address the problems facing villagers around Barapukuria coalmine

RESOURCES in the neighbourhood can be a curse if mining is not mindful, green, responsible, sustainable, savvy and ethical. Barapukuria coalmine turns into a curse for those in four neighbouring villages around the minefield.

According to a media report, a plethora of problems plague the neighbouring people, including shockwaves in the coalmine that crack their houses and depletion of safe drinking water which is essential for their survival.

Affected three hundred houses there have been urging the authorities concerned to address their woes through staging different forms of protest including human chain but all in vain.

In fact, the ground reality is their houses have been rattled with shockwaves of the mine, disrupting their daily routine works since 2005 when mining started.

Bangladesh has a very poor track record in compensation settlement, be it local or international.

In multinational issues, the country fails because it has a team of negotiators who are not competent and have linguistic weaknesses, be it in English, Myanmarese, Arabic or other languages.

Despite the lingering problem of Rohingya refugees, Bangladesh’s Foreign Service Academy, mandated to train up diplomats, fails blatantly to encourage its trainees to learn Myanmar language effectively.

Same is the case with Arabic, which is spoken over 20 countries – destinations of nearly one crore Bangladeshi migrant workers.

Ironically from a colonial mindset, the trainee diplomats are enticed to learn French as part of their academic course.

In the past, Bangladesh experienced many blowouts and notable among the gas field blowouts were Sylhet-1(1955), Sylhet-4(1962), Moulvibazar-1(1997) and Chattak-2 (2005), which is popularly known as Magurchhara.

The country in some cases tried compensation settlement in vain.

In many cases it lagged behind in claiming compensation for the damages done to the environment and livelihood of people.

Bangladesh is failing to make its case for the environmental loss for withdrawal of water by Farakka and other dams and barrages in India and climate change.

We urge the government to groom up a group of well-trained professional negotiators and diplomats who can expedite arbitrations and other issues adeptly.

The Chinese contractor – CMC- which is extracting coal from the Barapukuria coalmine should immediately pay heed to the harrowing stories of the villagers and act accordingly.