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Head lines
Bangladesh should demarcate Bay
to allure IOCs for gas exploration Special Correspondent, The Bangladesh Observer
Experts suggests Bangladesh should
demarcate the Bay of Bengal international limits with Myanmar and India to
allure international oil companies (IOC) for offshore drilling for gas and
oil.
The technical cooperation would
significantly reduce the cost and also encourage IOC’s for bidding for
deepwater exploration, the experts opined at a seminar on “Deepwater
Exploration” organised by Forum of Energy Reporters Bangladesh (FERB) at
the National Press Club on Sunday.
Deepwater hydrocarbon exploration
prospect began in Brazil. In fact Brazil had been the pioneer, later the
expertise of deepwater drilling gained momentum and the Gulf of Mexico and
West Africa have the highest number of offshore exploration.
ONGC has already invested in exploration
in Vietnam Sudan and Sakhalin isles and have gone to the depth of 1,200 to
2,000 metres, which Guha said would be approximately 3 kilometres deep in
the peculiar hydrological system.
However, other speakers from Bangladesh
and India did not agree to the statement of the State Minister and instead
said that both Petrobangla and BAPEX are capable to undertake onshore oil
and gas exploration under technical collaboration with IOC.
The exploration has been stalled in
Sunderban block, which was contracted to Shell Oil Company last year. The
state minister explained that Bangladesh has signed a production sharing
contract (PSC) with Shell and both parties have to meet the schedule for
time management.
Mosharraf Hossain, former chairman of
Petrobangla said deepwater exploration is complex, challenging and risky,
which make the operational cost very high and often frustrating. The
exploration in Bay of Bengal will be a potential prospect for hydrocarbon
resources, he added.
AL won't join CPA meet The Bangladesh Observer
Opposition
Awami League on Sunday night conveyed to the diplomats from Commonwealth
member states that they would abstain from attending next month’s
conference of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) in Dhaka,
reports UNB.
The opposition’s final stance was
conveyed to the diplomats of Australia, Britain, Canada, India and Sri
Lanka over a dinner hosted by the party at a city restaurant.
Awami League senior leaders, including
Abdus Samad Azad, Zillur Rahman, Abdul Jalil, ASHK Sadique, Mohiuddin Khan
Alamgir, Kazi Zafarullah and Syed Abul Hossain, were present.
Explaining at length the reasons for
their abstention decision, Jalil said the government did not involve the
main opposition Awami League with the process and preparation for holding
the conference of the CPA, which was mooted by Awami League while in
power.
He said although the CPA conference has nothing to do with the government as it is purely a parliamentary affair, the government “politicized” the event keeping the main opposition at bay. Even two non-MPs who are staff of the Prime Minister’s office have been inducted into the steering committee.
Jalil said the Awami League being the
main opposition was never consulted by the Speaker at any stage of
formation of various committees and preparation for the conference. In
reply to a query from a diplomat, he said the two members of Awami League
were inducted into the steering committee of the conference without caring
to consult the party leadership.
He also referred to the government
attitude towards the opposition and making parliament “ineffective”. In support of his contentions, the AL
leader mentioned the Prime Minister’s declaration of a non-MP as a `de
facto MP’ in a constituency in Faridpur represented by an elected member
of Awami League. He also cited the Speaker’s remarks that parliament is
functioning well without the opposition.
Saber Hossain Chowdhury said
Commonwealth stands for promotion and institutionalization of democracy,
but the government attitude is nothing but manifestation of negation to
that concept.
Gas exploration task neglected: experts The Bangladesh Observer
Bangladesh in the past few years has so vigorously been
bogged down to euphoric gas-export dream that it forgot about the main
task of new exploration, thereby courting a crisis, reports UNB.
“Even if we want to export gas, we need new exploration.
But we forgot the main task and mainly concentrated discussion on export,”
said former Petrobangla Chairman M Mosharraf Hossain.
Forum for Energy Reporters Bangladesh (FERB) arranced the
workshop on “deepwater exploration” at the Jatiya Press Club where experts
on Indian ONGC made technical presentations.
He, however, maintained his usual gesture by pointing his
finger to the state-run Petrobangla and its exploration company BAPEX,
apparently for their failure particularly in respects of carrying on
exploration and seismic survey.
“Now it is the question of going for the risky and costly
investment,” he said, on a note of optimism that the international
companies having blocks covering offshore would go for the exploration.
“Once ONGC, too, was considered a dead organisation, but
after enough funds provided, it was able to take its business even
abroad,” he told the meet.
ONGC officials and experts JM Gugnani, B Guha and AK Gupta
told the workshop that their company, having world-class technology and
experiences of years, could cooperate with Bangladesh in this venture.
They said the ONGC saw bright prospect in Bangladesh
deepwater. They informed that investment in the deep exploration
ultimately is “cost-effective”, with the productivity being higher.
Farmers in financial crisis, unable to repay loan
Jute sells at throwaway price,
growers in quandary
From Our
Correspondent
The Bangladesh Observer
JAMALPUR, Sept 21:–Farmers
of Jamalpur district has lost interest in jute cultivation due to poor
price which is below the production cost.
The production cost of
one maund of Tosha variety of jute is nearly Tk 340 and that of local
variety Tk 280, the market price on an average, of Tosha jute is Tk 320
and for local jute Tk 270 this season as against Taka 260 last year.
Jute sticks are used as
fuel for cooking and fencing purpose. The demand of jute sticks is higher
than that of jute fibre.
The crisis of high
yielding variety (HYV) seeds has been prevailing in the district for many
years. The growers produce seeds by their own arrangement. Due to last
year flood and heavy rainfall, the production of seeds had been hampered.
The Bangladesh Agriculture
Development Corporation (BADC) supply of HYV seeds is not enough. New
varieties of seeds such as C-320 and C-822 of white jute and 0-632 and
0-753 of Tosha jute ensure high yield. The supply is not smooth causing
scarcity high breed seeds.
Indian
seeds
Many of the growers depend
on smuggled Indian seeds, which are found a plenty in the local markets.
The sale of Indian seeds is relatively poor.
Knowledgeable circles say
that farmers are facing a lot of problems due to the Agriculture
Department's poor management of supplying HYV seeds and cultivation of
jute is being hampered greatly.
The farmers of the
district have no adequate access to natural water bodies for jute
processing because most of water bodies are used for fish cultivation.
After harvesting the jute
plants are tied in bundles and kept under banana stalks, hyacinths and mud
in stagnant water to rot it. Once decomposed the fibres are separated from
the sticks.
The absence of effective
marketing facilities contributes to heavy losses.
Lack of
marketing facilities
The jute markets are
located at Shimla Bazar, Baushi and Aramnogar Bazar of Sarishabari upazila,
Shamgonj Bazar and Balijuri Bazar of Madarganj upazila.
Shanandabari Bazar and
Dewanganj Bazar of Dewanganj upazila, Gathail Bazar of Islampur upazila,
Hazrabari of Melandah upazila, Kamalpur Bazar of Bakshiganj upazila and
Tulshipur Bazar, Narundi Bazar and Nandina Bazar of Jamalpur Sadar upazila
under Jamalpur district.
Allegations against state
owned mills
There have been
allegations that the state owned mills do not buy jute directly from the
farmers. The licence holder jute traders do the work before selling the
jute to the authorities of state owned mills on credit.
Some of the licensed jute
traders told me that they still owed a huge amount money to the jute mills
owners. Many jute traders have stocked jute for selling it to the mills,
but they could not sell jute causing blockage of capital.
Many jute growers have
predicted if the price of jute continues to fall, jute will face the fate
of indigo during the British Rule.
Madaripur
Our Madaripur
correspondent reports: The jute growers of Madaripur district are
incurring monetary loss due to abnormally low price of jute in the
markets.
A local jute trader said
that government has fixed the jute price at Tk 305 per maund, but they
cannot afford to buy it beyond Taka 250.
The situation aggravated
with the closure of AR Howlader Jute Mills of the district. Due to
shortage of dealers in the markets, the growers sell their produce at
throwaway price incurring heavy loss.
Repayment
of loan
The poor jute growers are
deprived of fair price as they can not wait for a long time and dispose of
their produce after harvesting due to financial crisis as they cannot
repay loan taken from the banks and money lenders.
The cultivation of golden
fibre in the district may fall further causing irreparable loss to the
national exchequer. Jute is the cash crop in four upazilas of the
district.
About 80 per cent jute
growers of the district purchase their daily necessities by selling jute.
At the same time the high price of essential commodities have thrown the
growers into wilderness.
About 85 per cent of jute
growers of the district took loans from different commercial banks and
village money lenders for jute cultivation. It has been difficult for them
to repay the loans, they said.
Meanwhile, Agriculture Extension
Department sources said some 36,000 acres of land in four upazilas here
have been brought under jute farming with a target to produce 1,63,500
bales of jute during the current season. UN role for world peace needed The Independent The speakers at a roundtable organised jointly by Dhaka Ahsania Mission (DAM) and UN Information Centre (UNIC), Dhaka yesterday in the DAM auditorium in Dhanmondi in the city said that the long-awaited world peace can be established in this new millennium only if the UN can play its desired role, says a press release. Moderated by Dr M Enamul Huq, a former IGP, the function was participated by M Ehsanur Rahman, Deputy Executive Director of DAM, Kazi Ali Reza, Office in-charge UNIC, Dr Nurul Momen, Visiting Professor, Jahangirnagar University, Prof Masuda M Chowdhury of Sociology Department, Dhaka University, Dr Iftekharuzzamam, Director, Freedom Foundation, Dr Abdur Rob Khan, Director of Research, BIISS, and Sanjeeb Drong, Director, Indigenous People Forum. The speakers stressed that there should be a culture of peace a coexistence in individual, family, community and country level and the civil society both at home and abroad can do a miracle if they work unitedly for world peace and against the warmongers. |
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“
We’ve explained the grounds and communicated our decision that we’re not
going to participate in the 49th conference of the CPA,” Saber Hossain
Chowdhury, political secretary to Sheikh Hasina, told UNB later in the
night.
One
maund of jute now sells at Taka 200 to Taka 250 in the markets, lower than
the cost of production.