Barapukuria Coal Mine
Tk 324 cr plan to rehabilitate affected people
Barapukuria Coal Mining Company Ltd (BCMCL) has taken a Tk 324crore master plan to rehabilitate and compensate villagers affected due to frequent land subsidence caused by underground geological faults in and round the coal mine area.
BCMCL authorities prepared a Development Project Proposal (DPP) and placed it to the government to allocate Tk 260crore in the coming Annual Development Project (ADP) of 2010-11 fiscal year, official sources said.
The master plan includes preparing resettlement framework (RF), land acquisition plan (LAP) and resettlement action plan (RAP), and distributing compensation money and rehabilitate the affected villagers after developing a 'mining city'.
It also proposed improvement of lifestyle of the affected villagers free of cost.
Considering the scale of damage including infrastructure, land and natural resources, BCMCL authorities prepared the resettlement framework (RF) with the help of independent consultant Dr Khurshed Alam and placed it to Petrobangla on October 4 last year, sources said.
BCMCL authorities identified at least 646 acres of land as 'possible land subsidence area' according to the international standard of mining project, sources said.
Appointed by BCMCL, Bangladesh Consultant Ltd (BCL) began its field level survey on December 1 last year to prepare the RAP and LAP database.
"We will start the land acquisition after getting all the three database and government approval with proposed fund," said BCMCL Managing Director Md Quamruzzaman.
BCMCL also submitted a proposal to the deputy commissioner urging the district administration to acquire the proposed 646 acres of land and the district administration is preparing to acquire the proposed land with market prices, sources said.
BCL, which is about to end its survey, will prepare a proposal to acquire land for the 'mining city', BCMCL officials said.
The villagers around Barapukuria coalmine have been demanding compensation for damage of houses and arable lands caused by land subsidence due to the geographical faults.
BCMCL authorities gave about Tk 2 crore 10 lakh as compensation to the affected villagers since 2005-06 FY, sources said.
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