Hard rock miners of Maddhapara Granite Mine Company Limited (MGMCL) continued their strike for the third consecutive day as the authorities concerned did not take any initiative to meet their demands.
The miners went on the strike on Monday for indefinite period to press home their five-point demand.
The workers started the work abstention after the company started handing over mine to Germania-Trest Consortium.
A total of 308 workers of MGMCL Workers Employees Union staged a demonstration outside the company building.
On September 2, the state-owned Maddhapara Granite Mining Company Ltd signed a deal with the Germania-Trest Consortium to produce about 9.2m tonnes of hard rock worth Tk20.7bn in six years.
Production under the new contractor is expected to start next January.
Khairul Islam, president of the miners’ union, told the Dhaka Tribune that they would continue their agitation programme until the demands were met.
Although the workers have been demanding regularisation of their jobs since 2001, the authorities did not pay heed to it, he said.
The demands include job regularisation, providing 20% dearness allowance, putting an end to lay-off, re-appointing retrenched workers and stopping appointment of miners outside the company. Khairul Islam said the workers were earlier given assurance that the mining company would regularise their jobs after their training under the outsourcing of the company is over. Earlier, on 24 November the miners submitted a memorandum to the managing director of MGMCL to take steps to meet their demands. Yesterday, several hundreds of hard rock miners staged demonstration in front of the main entrance of the company in the morning. Managing Director of the company Mohammad Moinuddin told the Dhaka Tribune that the company would not be able to resolve the issue unless the ministry concerned gives a policy guideline on the matter. “It is not possible to fulfill any of their demands,” he added. Maddhapara Granite Mine Company Limited is a company of Petrobangla under the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources. The MGMCL, country’s only hard rock company, has been mining rocks at the site since 1994. Mohammad Moinuddin said Germania-Trest Consortium (GTC) would work as a contractor to develop and operate the mine. It would increase the mine’s hard rock production to 5,000 tonnes per day from the present 900 tonnes. As per the contract, the GTC will work at the project for the next six years, at an estimated cost of $171.86m. They will produce 9.2m tonnes of hard rock during the contract period. The GTC, a consortium of Bangladesh-based Germania Corporation Limited and Belarus-based JSC Trest Shakhtos Petsstroywas selected for the project through a tender process contested by five international companies. The hard rock mine was discovered through a Geological Survey of Bangladesh (GSB) in 1974 at a depth of 136 metres in the underground at Maddhapara, Parbatipur of Dinajpur district.