Solar Bangla to Shonar Bangla

Salahud Din Ahmed

A strong craving to lift Bangladesh to the status of a middle-income country within not-so-distant a time is encouraging indeed. Hearteningly, one can find a clear-cut consensus and shared dream among all -- politicians, bureaucrats, businesspeople and even student community. They all do want to see a beaming Bangladesh with all her children having smile on their face.

To make a sustainable headway, no particular region of the country can be left lagging. The northern region of Bangladesh, that has some geo-ethnic peculiarity, therefore, does deserve attention of all concerned for stepping forward.

NBDF seminar
A group of people recently met to discuss ways of prompt development of North Bengal. They had created North Bengal Development Forum, NBDF. Their discussion did congeal into consensus and expectedly would have been conveyed to the policymakers with endorsement of their colleagues attending the programme. Honourable ministers and Advisor, Mayor, MPs, Chamber leaders, educationists, NGO leaders, regulators, and other players were present.

Solar Bangla to Shonar Bangla
In a long list of deprivations the North suffers from, industrialisation topped which is a result of mainly the dearth of energy. People there are dispossessed in many other ways. The National Anthem everyday reminds us of Shonar Bangla (the Golden Bengal) -- where each of her sons from all corners of the country will have smile, we are to bring lights also to poorer people. One quick course is to resort to reenewable energy in general, and the solar energy in particular. Solar Bangla shall soon lead us to Shonar Bangla, where people will be seen to smile in the soft light of solar lamps.

Gas and grid-electricity is a must for large industries in the region. Gas pipe laying and other expansion work by government are also in progress. But can the poor common people wait for that, embracing the evening darkness, students closing their books as the sun sets? Chilean poet Gabriella Mistral said: “We are guilty of many errors and many faults but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time when his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, and his senses are being developed. To him we cannot say 'Tomorrow.' His name is 'Today.''”

We can easily take lights and some power to these children, their dejected parents through renewables in a much easier and quicker way. The government will have some comfort as the commitment of Power to All will be fairly met with some power supplied to poorer people. Government then can come out of discomposure of the inability for lighting people at large right now; and can steadily go ahead with its powering plan. It gets them opportunity to improve its present plan, crafting it over the perspective plan. Industry chambers may also meanwhile better plan their sites etc. and help the government reach a plan that would ensure sustainable growth. It is known now that to turn our country into a middle-income one, we have to pass through a decade of GDP growth rate of more than seven percent.

Photo: SK Enamul Haque

Young Solar-entrepreneurs
During my recent visit to Boston, USA I met among others four Professors, some of them Solar Physicists, retired from 'active' service quite a long time back. But they seemingly had started their 'real' service. One of them, Prof Richard Komp, now frequents to India, Indonesia, Mali and Pakistan to train young entrepreneurs to make small solar panels. They use small pieces of panel which are made from industrial waste, sold at a throw-away price. Involved with the programme, youths in these countries earn a livelihood and also can help the low-income people have some power. Interestingly, trip of these experts are sponsored by non-profit US organisations. If we can organise small groups in various parts of the North, they also can do marvels. Only thing needed is the youthful MPs and other youth leaders of the North taking some interest with passion. For them, probably, Gabriel Garcia Marquez said:

“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.”

The enthusiastic local leaders can also play pivotal role in some other fields. We keep talking to people through Outreach Programme of Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission. We talk about curbing wastage and pilferage of power, redress for wrongdoings and the like. We encourage people to go for renewables too, where appropriate. Some officers from local administration assured us that they would try to set up Solar Water Heater on the rooftop of these Circuit Houses and save the total electric bill spent for heating large quantity of water particularly in the winter. Entrepreneurs may soon start making such heaters in our country. GTZ is known to play a vital role in this field. It can be also used to separately heat the water needed for cooking, in student halls or hostels, cantonments, barracks, labourer sheds etc. This will save gas, kerosene or precious firewood. So, MPs who are heading the governing bodies of educational Institutions of their locality, top army, police, BGB and Ansar officials or administrators can immediately start in phases if necessary and thus not only save fuel, but save the environment as well.

North is more sunny and solar appliances will run more efficiently there.

Pioneering work
People in various places in our country are setting up biogas plants and are lowering load on conventional power suppliers. Most of them use dairydung or poultrydrops, human excreta (also called night soil, so called probably not to 'sound' dirty!) which are not common yet, though these are available in huge quantity without any difficulty particularly in a densely populated country like ours. For no justification people tend to avoid it. A very enthusiastic professor-turned-businessman who set up a night soil biogas plant in Noakhali told me, his wife living in Dhaka disgustedly covered her nose with handkerchief as she heard of the plant! A businessman runs with this gas an eight-kilowatt biogas generator and has to pay nothing for the fuel. There are two such night soil plants in two Madrassas in Narshingdi. Another Madrassa in Comilla even does their cooking with such gas. I, driven by personal passion, am in touch with police and army authorities and expect them shortly to start constructing such plants beside their barracks. These can also be done in various police barracks, hostels in police academy and other training centres in the North. When running, these can easily be demonstrated to local people for encouraging them.

Pride and pleasure for politicians!
What power means to a poor farmer can be fathomed by the witness given by him in a rural church of the USA in the early 1940s: “Brothers and sisters, I want to tell you this. The greatest thing on earth is to have the love of God in your heart, and the next greatest thing is to have electricity in your house.”

And also important is to perceive the feeling of an American public representative Senator George W Norris of Nebraska, Co-sponsor of the Rural Electrification Act. :

“I had seen first-hand the grim drudgery and grind which had been the common lot of eight generations of American farm women. I had seen the tallow candle in my own home, followed by the coal-oil lamp. I knew what it was to take care of the farm chores by the flickering, undependable light of the lantern in the mud and cold rains of the fall, and the snow and icy winds of winter.

I had seen the cities gradually acquire a night as light as day.

I could close my eyes and recall the innumerable scenes of the harvest and the unending punishing tasks performed by hundreds of thousands of women, growing old prematurely; dying before their time; conscious of the great gap between their lives and the lives of those whom the accident of birth or choice placed in the towns and cities.

Why shouldn't I have been interested in the emancipation of hundreds of thousands of farm women?”
I have conviction that our public representatives are no less aware of women, and also men, in their constituencies dying before their time. These people too are conscious of the great gap between their village and our town. I am sure many a politician is no less moved when they see their voters rush to cities in search of job and food, but only burn them at Nimtoli or bury them at Begunbari.

I had to be overwhelmed by the concern and dream in people in the Seminar, especially the Politicians. Some of them were young, shiny and promising. That encouraged me in quoting Senator Norris from the book titled The Next Greatest Thing that I was given when I visited The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, NRECA in Washington, DC. In fact many of their stories, pictures of olden days can be guiding examples for us. Our leaders working particularly for the rural people, I am sure, will be interested in life and works of Senator Norris. They can open these internet-sites:

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=n000139 and http://tva.gov/

Looking at the way he once became Father of the Tennessee Valley Authority, our leaders also can envisage and execute many a mega projects to be gifted with the pride and pleasure the true politicians deserve.

Caution for Rajshahi city planners
One visiting Rajshahi city will hardly find any sign of urbanisation in the real sense, only a handful of high-rise buildings are there. It still provides us with chance to plan a City unlike dreadful Dhaka which only burns and buries her poor and unfortunate dwellers. The task have to be careful right from the beginning. Rajshahi City Corporation will face lesser problem in widening roads and relocating the industries away from the city. Delay or laxity will only invite havocs. The concerned agency, from the beginning, will have to be manned by efficient and honest persons. The next generation will never forgive our failures in this case.

They also can see the brilliant example of Khulna City Corporation setting up a huge solar plant recently.

Footballer Drogba saved Ivory Coast, who is our Drogba?
Didier Drogba, the famous Ivorian footballer has won acclaim world over by saving his motherland, Ivory Coast, from tearing apart. He was instrumental in bringing peace back after decades of civil war. Celebrated cricketers and other sportspersons of the North can sit immediately with the young leaders and make low-budget but realistic plans. It will be no wonder if we see our Drogbas doing something revolutionary in a very short time. This will help in stabilizing the society as well.

Photo: SK Enamul Haque

Growing rice with 70% less irrigation
Very recently Researchers of Bangladesh Agricultural University have invented a rice cultivation method for growing Boro rice in dry field, i.e., the rice needs almost no irrigation. It has been very successfully tested in the districts of Rajshahi and Dinajpur. It saves a huge money and labour as in this method there is no necessity of making seed bed and moreover the plants require 70% less irrigation. Reports have it, a total of more than Tk 28,000 million will be saved annually if the whole country starts cultivating in this method. We may see it to spread very quickly all over only if our smart leaders coordinate with growers and relevant departments. By growing more rice we may get more rice bran, which amounts to 20% of rice produced, and with that bran we can not only produce electricity but also make best use of the ash to make pure silica. At the top remains the money to be derived from Clean Development Mechanism for not burning fossil fuel to produce power.

Setting up more community E-centres in the North
Bangladesh Computer Council, BCC is implementing a project of setting up Community E-Centres, CEC in various Upazila Parishad buildings. In its second phase, they will open one Centre in two Upazilas of Rajshahi and five Upazilas of Rangpur. Local leaders may try to arrange setting up of more such centres in other places. If the leaders try, they can arrange to run all their CEC by solar power.

Bagerhat police - set a shining example
A few years back some youngsters at Bagerhat were nabbed for teasing girls, but the punishment they got was interesting. They were forced to attend a computer course. After that they turned role model for other boys in the locality. The then SP Awlad Fakir did it with the help of Amader Gram.

Amulya Barua, another Police Official set up a computer centre at a Buddhist place of worship at Banshkhali, Chittagong where monks then learnt computer. The thriving centre now gives glowing reports of social advancement in the area. With many other Amulya-Awlads in other departments, they can set even brighter examples. My hope is, not only the night soil biogas plant in police barracks, we will soon see other nation- building activities also to be initiated by the reformed and smarter police force. These will be inspiring examples for others. These projects become more useful and sustainable with wider participation of various groups.

Honouring heroes
About 35,000 hectares of cultivated rice used to be affected in North as there was no flood-tolerant variety available. Brridhaan 51 and 52 and other three short duration varieties have also been evolved that have curbed decades-long Monga there. Pariza, a local rice variety, has also been improved by a local breeding specialist Dr Mrinmoy Neogi of RDRS at Rangpur. Stunningly, now it grows in 75 to 90 days while any other variety needs 100+ days. And it can be grown in the middle of Boro and Amon, a time period when the land used to remain only uncultivated. It now means an extra crop; and is very important particularly when we are losing about one percent of land every year for building home on it. Our smart and young MPS can look at sites like those follow and do something positive and innovative soon after going through chapter/sections titled, say, 'the way forward'; only endeavours like these will make them different from their colleagues. And, these are really the things that will decide what will be written on their gravestones, that I mention later.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=enandsource=hpandq=Parija+Rice+Bangladesh, www.fao.org/docs/eims/upload/agrotech/1904/Bang_Impacts.pdf

Leaders can coordinate so that Scientists are encouraged to develop many more varieties of these kinds. Ones already evolved, should be arranged to spread properly through concerted effort by farmers, NGO and Agricultural Extension Department of the government.

There are many other big and small innovations happening in the North, bringing many pieces of good news. Our local leaders can make a lot of good out of these. Like a youngman started making bio-fertilizer very successfully. He can well be encouraged and this venture can be easily spread to other parts of the North. Another college-goer invented how to switch off an irrigation pump from a distant place, and the device cost only a few thousand Taka. Though sounds simple, it can help the farmers save time, labour and money; help the nation save a huge amount of precious power. Our MPs can start it right away with whatever fund they are readily provided with. Jointly, they may request conscious people, academia of the area or from away to advance ideas that the leaders should go for implementation in phases. This requires nothing more than some love for the land they were born in. Luckily, most of them do have it!

A host of people like scientists, management specialists from home and abroad are at times in touch with us talking about prospects of business. Some of them took early retirement but still having a lot of zeal, others wondering about coming back from abroad. Our enterprising leaders can welcome them to their constituencies and help establish good ventures. This has immediate prospect of employment of local jobless people, then of economic progress of the locality. Cannot these be even undertaken as early electioneering with a win-win-win potential? I utter win thrice to mean that for the leader, entrepreneur and populace.

Jump in with joy for Journey with Jatropha!
I well know an NRB with idea for planting Jatropha, a plant growing in dry, marginal non-agricultural lands (perfectly for the North!) with its seed having 40% oil. This oil can be used as Biodiesel directly after extraction (without refining) in diesel generators and engines.

This time I will talk about not only smart businessmen-turned leaders for promoting it, I dream of PDB Chairman inviting top leaders soon to inaugurate a fairly large diesel power plant in the North! Imagine thousands of poor rural families finding some source of earning and ridding themselves of starvation. Not too far, to see and learn about it, one can rush to India where by Biofuel they mainly mean Jatropha oil. It is very important to note that cultivating corn, sugar cane or palm for Biofuel will displace a lot of food crops from viable agricultural land, Jatropha will not.

Seaful thanks for Mutual Trust Bank
Mutual Trust Bank deserves appreciation for opening the first-ever Branch in Bangladesh run on solar power in Ishwardi. Through their new product MTB Green Energy they lend for Renewables. They have financed a big Solar Irrigation Project. Credit should also go to Governor, Bangladesh Bank and his passionate team for encouraging banks. In fact, they can only revolutionize power scenario of the country in no time. Mutual Trust Bank may soon open such other branches, particularly in the North. Other Banks will also then follow suit, prudently guided by the Central Bank.

Great good by GTZ
It is painful seeing our rural womenfolk cooking or doing other chores amidst dark sickening smoke with already ailing children in their lap. Are not they also conscious of the great gap between their villages and our towns while their urban counterparts do all these with much comfort? GTZ-Bangladesh is spreading improved, efficient health- and environment-friendly stoves called Bondhu Chula (Friend Stove, emitting less smoke, needing less firewood) developed by Science Lab (BCSIR). Their project involves enthusiastic and energetic people of any age or profession who can make a good amount of money while setting up stoves in their areas. Whoever comes to you for help, can try this tip and directly save hundreds of rural women from pain and death.

Krishibid Institution in Shopnojatra
Krishibid Institution, Bangladesh -- KIB has its branch in North as well. Under their stewardship now they may start a dream-journey or Shopnojatra. Like our National Hero Dr Maqsudul Alam finally succeeded in sequencing the entire Jute Genome in Shopnojatra of his team, KIB can form a task force kind of group which will include representatives from local leaders, admin and other relevant officials, chamber leaders, teachers, bankers and the like. The group will sit to set some targets that will have detailed plan about how many solar heaters, solar irrigation pumps, solar photovoltaic installations, wind power installations (turbines, mills or pumps -- as appropriate), biogas plants (cattle, poultry or night soil-based), will be set up with location specified by them only on consideration of benefit to maximum number of people. The group will also search for small or big innovations in their location, or even some from outside, and fund for improvement and commercialization of such techniques. If the institution leaders take it seriously, in only a few months they will be able to achieve a major breakthrough.

Separately, the institution can commercially or in some other ways start growing Jatropha in a huge strip on the roadside and other fallow places. Oil from the plants can straight away be sent to irrigation pumps of the respective localities through block supervisors of Agricultural Extension Department. Money saved in the process shall be spent as the group will decide.

Text of the tombstone
“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others” said an ancient Greek politician, general and statesman about 2,500 years back. It is still true for all (of course those who can afford a grave and a gravestone) a legislator from North or leader from South; a professor from East or bureaucrat from West!

The writer is a former member, Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission. The article is based on a lecture delivered at NBDF Seminar in Dhaka on May 19, 2010. Opinions in the article are only personal.