Regulations often add an unnecessary burden to the business sector when certain establishments are made compulsory for existing setups. We remain strong in our support for the business sector and the growth that they are achieving. Unless absolutely unavoidable, we would not support imposing unwarranted pressure on the business sector.
However, sustainable pursuits of profit must be responsible and businesses must clean up the mess that are by-products of their profit. No profit, in the short or long term, can justify high carbon costs, which is a negative externality that all of us end up paying. Hence, we support the government initiative of promoting greener brick kilns.
Apart from outlawing the age-old systems, the government had dedicated Tk6bn in funds so that the brickfields can install state of the art, environmentally friendly and fuel-efficient facilities. Both the 10% interest rate and the 3 years timeframe provided to facilitate the shift were reasonable and adequate for procuring the resources and the means required.
The interest from the businessmen, at best, has been lukewarm and it’s unacceptable that three years down the line, only 17% of Bangladesh’s brickfields have installed greener facilities.
While the world is going the extra mile to save the environment, our brick-makers should be able to bear the one off expense in setting up the new kilns and still continue to make profit, not to mention the savings from reductions in fuel costs.
In the end, going green will actually spur productivity gains. The existing methods of brick-making are simply unsustainable, and the sooner the industry comes into the 21st century, the better.