The government will formulate a policy to facilitate export of soil and sands to enhance the country’s export earnings.
The commerce ministry will hold an inter-ministerial meeting on July 22 to formulate the policy on the potential export of soil and sands with its newly appointed secretary Hedayetullah Al Mamoon in the chair, said a senior official of the planning commission.
Officials from various ministries including land, environment, agriculture, finance and home affairs will attend the upcoming meeting.
The decision to export soil and sand from Bangladesh was made at the Executive Committee on National Economic Council (ECNEC) meeting held a couple of months ago.
According to sources, the several jubilant sand and soil exporters have already submitted their respective proposals to the commerce ministry for getting permission to export these new products to a country like Singapore or Maldives.
The Network and Infrastructure Company has already applied to the commerce ministry, seeking approval for exporting over 1.5m tonnes of sands to Singapore. The proposal, however, still remains pending.
Earlier, the Maldivian government showed its interest to import sands from Bangladesh as the Maldives authority had requested Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for exporting sands and soil during her visit there. This move also could not yield any further progress due to bureaucratic complexities.
Apart from that firm and the Maldivian government, there were some other local private companies, who have applied to the land ministry, seeking to export sands.
Owners of those firms have claimed that it might be possible to earn Tk700 crore to 1200 crore each year by exporting sands.
As the existing Export Policy Order of the ministry of commerce does not prohibit sands export, it can be exported to different countries on permission from the government.
According to the Centre for Environmental and Geographic Information Services, an independent analysis wing of the ministry of water resources, nearly 800 square kilometres of valuable floodplains have been lost due to erosion along the Brahmaputra and the Jamuna’s total length of 240km in Bangladesh.
As hydrologists often noted that the dredging results in lowering of the alluvial water table which, in turn, directly affects groundwater storage capacity. Excessive dredging allows for saline intrusion into the groundwater.
The government will not make any decision on the export of soil and sands without conducting further accurate survey on the availability of sands and sediments on the river beds across the country, executive director of Center for global change Ashanuddin Ahmed told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
He also noted that a total of 1.670bn metre tonnes of sand and sediment comes from the upstream of the Bangladeshi river and only 1% or 2% sands and sediments remain on the river bed.
Meanwhile, other experts have also opined that the Sand Quarry and Soil Management-2010 Act, has to be implemented fully before any decision on sands export.