Tk 900 Crore Kurigram Sand Research Centre at Risk of Being Buried in Bureaucratic Red Tape

The ‘Kurigram Sand Research and Processing Centre’ project, with an estimated cost of about Tk 900 crore, risks being shelved before it ever sees the light of day. An extreme lack of coordination between field-level realities and the information held at the centre and the secretariat has created deep uncertainty over the project's future.

According to feasibility studies by the Geological Survey of Bangladesh (GSB) and the Public Works Department, the project could generate about 10 billion US dollars a year (more than Tk 120,000 crore). The 50-year master plan, running from 2026 to 2075, envisages direct and indirect employment for about 1.5 million people.

GSB's long-running research has found that about one billion tonnes of renewable sand flow every year from the Himalayan basin through Kurigram into the Brahmaputra and Jamuna rivers. GSB has detected valuable minerals in this sand, including garnet and quartz, magnetite, zircon, ilmenite and rutile.

Ilmenite and rutile are the world's main sources of titanium, used in paint, medicine, plastics and welding rods. Zircon is used in the ceramics industry, nuclear technology, spacecraft and high-tech electronics; magnetite is essential for steel plants and mining machinery; and garnet and quartz are raw materials for jewellery, water-jet cutting, computer microchips and medical instruments.

On 11 June this year, a policy-level consultation meeting on the project was held at GSB's ‘Mokhlesur Rahman Auditorium’. The 50-year master plan for 2026–2075 was presented there, aiming to turn Bangladesh into one of South Asia's mineral-technology and industrial economic powers by harnessing the Jamuna-Brahmaputra basin.

Under the plan, a pilot research plant is to be built on 15 acres in Kurigram's Chilmari upazila and the main research centre — a Mineral Sands Research Hub — on 10 acres at Tograihat in Rajarhat upazila. The design also includes research on rare-earth elements, artificial intelligence (AI), automation, SCADA, smart mining and a ‘Geological Big Data Centre’. The Public Works Department has already completed the land survey and feasibility report and sent it to the ministry concerned.

Trouble, however, surfaced at an internal coordination meeting of the Energy and Mineral Resources Division on 19 July. Agenda item 10 of the meeting minutes recorded that the Kurigram deputy commissioner had opined in a report that the government's returns would not be significant compared with the project's likely implementation cost.

Field-level enquiries, however, found a different picture. No such negative report was ever sent from the Kurigram district administration. On 5 March last year, the upazila nirbahi officers of Kurigram Sadar, Chilmari and Rajarhat had sent positive land-acquisition data and maps to the authorities. How the statement came to be recorded in the ministry's file in the district administration's name has angered local conscious citizens.

Kurigram Deputy Commissioner Annapurna Debnath rejected the ministry's claim, saying: “Before I joined, during the time of the former deputy commissioners, all the data on the possible land for the sand research centre were sent to the authorities. But the so-called negative opinion of the district administration mentioned in the 19 July meeting was never sent from our office. If this mega project is implemented, it will bring a revolutionary socioeconomic change for the people of the district.”

Executive Engineer of the Kurigram Public Works Department Abdullah Al Faruk said: “There is no doubt that the sand of the Brahmaputra basin contains valuable and rare minerals. We completed the land feasibility and utility verification long ago and sent the report to the department concerned.”

GSB Deputy Director (Geology) Dr Sohel Rana said: “This Brahmaputra sand coming from the Himalayas is fully transportable and renewable. If we can separate heavy and light minerals such as rutile, zircon and quartz from it, import dependence will fall and a huge titanium- and zirconium-based backward-linkage industry will grow in the country.”

District Development and Implementation Council president Shafikul Islam Bebu expressed anger, saying: “The mega project has not even started, yet how can the ministry say whether it will profit or lose? If implemented, it will erase the stigma of poverty from famine-prone Kurigram and change the whole country's economy. We want its speedy implementation.”

Kurigram Hitoishi Sangha president A K M Samiul Haque Nantu said economic development would be possible by using local resources if the project is implemented, and he sought Prime Minister Tarek Rahman's intervention to cut through the bureaucratic complexity. District BNP convener Mostafizur Rahman also demanded quick implementation of the project after removing the complications.

Asked about the conflicting positions of the district administration and the mineral resources ministry, Disaster Management and Relief Minister Asadul Habib Dulu said: “I am not aware of such a decision by the ministry. But if any bureaucratic complication or confusion of information has arisen over setting up the sand research centre, I will take the initiative myself to resolve it quickly.”

Of the 16 rivers flowing through the India-bordering district of Kurigram, the Dharla, Teesta, Dudhkumar and Brahmaputra are international rivers. Floods, drought, cold and river erosion are the district's natural disasters, and Kurigram has the country's largest share of people living below the poverty line. Local conscious citizens believe direct and urgent intervention from the government's policymakers and top level is needed so that the project does not end up buried in files.