The quest of the country's professional organization, the Geological Survey of Bangladesh, to find coal has already proved successful. But the presumption that in-country resources cannot be mobilized for its development is unacceptable. However, some of our policy-makers almost always prefer foreign investor participation over encouraging local entrepreneurs or joint ventures in the coal sector.

Perhaps it is true that we Bangladeshis have become so nervous because of the crises of all kinds that we have been facing for the past few years, and we have not taken time out to catch our breath and look at the big picture. There may not be any such thing as a crisis to end all crises, but at least the energy crisis has opened our eyes to how connected everything is.

We do not need to be tempted or intimidated by external interest groups. They may have a correct road-map to suit their purpose. But why should our government feel responsible for problems concerning a coalmine project, and why should it promote a contentious coal policy proposal formulated at the behest of a foreign company? In search of a second-best energy source, we simple cannot ignore the future role of coal in Bangladesh.

The proposed coal policy was in the final stage of approval of a political government in 2006, but it was refused and referred back to the Ministry of Energy. The plan is that it will now be placed before the council of advisors of the caretaker government for approval or direction.

Tracing the background of the proposal, it will become apparent that the Ministry of Energy has unwittingly brought in ideas from one foreign company and its associates to reincarnate the debatable proposal. The draft coal policy, it may be noted, was formulated by a private sector organization called the Infrastructure Investment Facilities (IIFC) financed by the World Bank.

Since late 2005, as many as six versions of the draft policy have been prepared, each time with the inclusion of some controversial clauses that would favour a foreign company/investor. In essence, the proposed coal policy is clearly export-oriented and export-biased. The anxiety of the public is increasing, as the documents have not been made public.

The most recent version shows a coal reserve of 1,460 million tons, while one previous version (May 2006) stated that with a reserve of 2,700 million tons of coal in Bangladesh, the energy demand-supply situation in the country would be much relieved. How, has not been analysed. And how the reserve decreased in ten months has also not been explained.

However, the most critical factor in this case is the mining method proposed, and also the percentage of recoverable reserves. More importantly, unlike gas development, mining of coal is fraught with serious dangers and challenges regarding the devastation that open-pit coal mining can cause to the site and also the overall environment.

The issues which are seriously debated, apart from mining method, are royalty, production capacity, and, above everything, export. While the percentage of royalty was 20 percent it was, for some mysterious reason, drastically reduced to 5 percent in the mid 1990s.

The government did not even carefully examine the export option (as the only option mentioned in the draft policy document). The other possible options could be profit/production sharing, joint venture, or even a service contract.

In all the latter options, the ownership of the people of Bangladesh could be retained. Incidentally, the market price of the reserve (1,160 million tons as stated in the draft policy paper) could be around $84 billion at $60 per ton. But our charitable Ministry of Energy is in a give-away mood to a foreign investor, in exchange of six percent royalty.

The Ministry of Energy has, however, underscored that, with a view to ensuring the energy security of Bangladesh, almost 80 percent of the produced coal would be exported.

The draft policy has reiterated that in considering the reserve-to-production ratio to be fixed at a minimum of 50 years (neither any percentage or volume of in-situ reserve has been mentioned as recoverable reserve). Based on that assumption, within the next 10 years from July 2007, 20 million tons coal would be produced per annum. Thereafter, in the next 10 years, the production will increase to 40 million tons per year up to 2027 or 2030.

But for whom is such a highly increased coal production necessary? For export, of course. Incidentally, for generation of say 1,000 megawatt (MW) electricity one would require only 2.8 million tons of coal per year. Multiplying that number with any thousand-megawatt capacity, the country's needs in the next 20-30 or 50 years may be calculated.

For generation of 5,000 MW electricity, one would need 14 to 15 million tons of coal per year, for 30 years the number would exceed 400 million tons. Now the question is, do we possess adequate "recoverable reserves" of coal for meeting our future energy demands? If we do, would we have exportable surplus?

There is one other aspect. The proposed Phulbari project has been sponsored by an internationally unknown company. Interestingly, this company's proposal envisages an annual production of 15 million tons, with 12 million tons to be exported, out of their estimated total reserve of 572 million tons at Phulbari.

In simple arithmetic, the company plans to produce between 80-85% of the total reserve for export. What I presume is that the under discussion draft coal policy has taken a cue from the Phulbari coal proposal to formulate a scheme for Bangladesh. The plan was shelved in late 2006, but resurfaced in 2007 when the CTG came to power. It is now alleged that the bureaucracy in the Ministry of Energy has once again taken up the challenge to promote the contentious project.

It is outrageous to even think that the people were never consulted with regard to the transfer of ownership of mineral rights, and that the politico-bureaucracy of the county never considered it necessary to inform the people about the provision of the law insofar as it relates to the dangers of open-pit coal mining at Phulbari.

Having learned about the consequences, the people protested violently, some even got killed. The government was not perturbed initially, but finally agreed to sign an agreement with the local people not to pursue the issue. Now, it is trying to break the contract.

We must consult our own professionals, academicians, and legal experts. We can learn from them. They are people like us. No one among us has the only correct guidelines. However, all of us, in our respective roles of consumers, producers, taxpayers, voters, and, above all, citizens, have the final say so as to the direction we will take. You and I create the market-place and fill the halls of meetings/seminars, the CTG, and also the parliament.

The one thing we have to guard against is consulting the wrong prescriptions and reaching for the wrong bottles to take a panic over-dose of quack medicine. Some foreign companies are offering us such medicines for development of one of our most important energy sources. We must be very careful. The game has been going on for the past nine years. It must stop now. The CTG cannot allow this to be aggravated.

Nurudin Mahmud Kamal is former Chairman, Power Development Board.