But due to apathy and lack of coordination among the concerned ministries and government institutions, research centres, the valuable minerals are left uncared for, unutilised and wasted for a long time.

It is also very unfortunate that most of our people, especially those living in the coastal areas, are ignorant and unaware of the importance and availability of the beach sand minerals.

In 1970, I found huge deposits of beach sand minerals which I call 'Black-Gold' of Cox's Bazar.

Ever since I have been trying my best for the commercial utilisation of the valuable minerals either in the public or in the private sector but in vain.

Sometimes the government authorities concerned tell me that beach sand minerals are not economically viable and sometime they say that commercial utilisation of the minerals would involve crores of taka, which a poor country like ours cannot afford. The private sectors entrepreneurs discard me saying that I am (the undersigned) neither a scientist nor a geologist.

I wonder how many of our political leaders, policy makers, journalists, industrialists and businessmen are aware of the utilisation and value of the beach sand minerals and how many of them have actually seen the minerals 'Black-Gold' of Cox's Bazar?

If the beach sand minerals are not economically feasible why is our government spending crores of taka for the last several decades on Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission's so called beach sand plant at Cox's Bazar?

The Australian Titanium Company has applied to the Government of Bangladesh for granting them a mining lease licence for extraction of minerals at Cox's Bazar sea beach. The fact is that the average heavy minerals content of our sand is 15 per cent which is 10 per cent higher than the Australian sand. But Australia is reported to be the biggest beach mineral exporting country capturing the world market.

It is true that development, separation, refining the beach sand minerals involve a heavy expenditure and a colossal capital investment. So should we give up, surrender and lose our national wealth for our incompetence and foolishness?

Let us move step by step, slowly but steadily within our limited means, utilise and export minerals in whatever quantity and quality we can and thus march forward.