A committee, tasked with making recommendations regarding the export of sand and soil, has suggested that the government should identify some “non-mineral zones” first before going for extraction and export.
This recommendation is supposed to be placed soon at a Commerce Ministry meeting.
Officials said the government would first conduct a survey to identify some areas in the country with deposits of sand that are not rich in mineral resources.
At a meeting in July, the Commerce Ministry discussed the prospects of exporting sand following proposals placed by some private business entities who said the new foreign trade could fetch as much as Tk1,200 crore, annually.
During that meeting, officials of the Environment Ministry opposed the idea saying the sand could be rich in mineral content.
Officials also said once the survey was done, there should be legal bindings on extracting sand from areas outside the non-mineral zones.
Three weeks ago, the Commerce Ministry formed an eight–member committee, led by Commerce Ministry Additional Secretary Shawkat Ali Warsi.
Professor of Soil Science at Dhaka University Mahabub Alam has already submitted a research in this regard.
The research paper details the economic and environmental advantages of exporting sand, but it does not have any recommendation regarding how to prevent extraction of mineral-rich sand.
According to the paper, most of the sand and sediment deposits in the Padma River; but the sand deposits there do not have any mineral content. Although it has also found that there is residual sand and sediment in the Teesta River bed, it recommended further research to find out whether it has any mineral content.
During its last meeting, the eight-member committee also discussed that 1.22-1.30 billion tonnes of sand and sediment comes into the Bangladeshi rivers every year and only 30% of that reaches the Bay of Bengal. The rest settles in the river beds which can be extracted by dredging.
According to the minutes of the last meeting, representatives of the Water Development Board said at the meeting that minerals could be separated from the sand and then the sand could be exported.
Commerce Secretary Hedayetul, one of the leading sand export enthusiasts, said: “After receiving the recommendations from the committee, the ministry will decide what to do.”