FE reported that Bangladesh government has sought opinion afresh from experts about the draft national coal policy to ensure a transparent and pragmatic course of action for development of the country's untapped coal resources.

Dr Tawfiq e Elahi Chowdhury, Prime Minister's energy adviser, said that "We have sought opinion as the previous ones over the draft policy were not sufficient enough for its finalization."

He added that the government is interested to finalise the process this time by this year.

Mr Muhammad Enamul Huq, state minister for the ministry of power, energy and mineral resources, also echoed the same view over finalization of the coal policy. He said that "We have no intention to be in a hurry over the issue."

The energy ministry earlier received comments and opinions over the draft policy from cross section of people for over a month until November 25th 2010. The incumbent government finalized the fresh draft of the national coal policy in mid 2010.

Officials said that developing the country's untapped coal resources is the key to its future growth. The government has a mega plan to generate over 10,000 MW of electricity from coal based power plants by 2021 under its proposed coal sector master plan. They said that the country will require over 50,000 tonnes of coal a day for generation of electricity from the planned coal based power plants from 2015 and the requirement will double by 2021.

The country's overall coal production is now hovering around 3,000 tonnes a day from the lone operational state owned coalmine at Barapukuria in Dinajpur. Currently, the country has very large coal reserve, estimated at around 3.0 billion tones, in five mines but coal extraction is limited to only the underground coalmine of Barapukuria.

Development of the remaining four coalmines, all endowed with top quality mineral, has been put on hold over the past decade in the absence of a national coal policy.

(Sourced from www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com)