Staff Reporter :
The lone state-owned rock producer Maddhapara Granite Mining Company (MGMCL) has come back to life as it made Tk 7 crore and Tk 22 crore operational profits respectively in the past two years.
The company started contributing to the state treasury after it went into full production in September last year.
State-run ‘Geological Survey of Bangladesh’ authority discovered the hard rock in a depth of 128 meters under the soil of Maddhyapara at Parbatipur in Dinajpur district in 1974.
According to a survey, the Maddhapara mine area spans over 1.2 square kilometres and has a reserve of around 174 million tonnes of hard rock and granite.
South-South Cooperation Corporation (NAMNAM), a North Korean company, started developing the mine under a suppliers’ credit contract in 1994.
According to the contract, completion of the Maddhapara mining project was due in June in 2001 but the contractor missed the deadline and the deadline was extended several times.
Ultimately, in July 2007, the MGMCL took over the mine after issuing a conditional acceptance certificate to NAMNAM with development works completed substantially and started commercial production in a single shift under its own management.
At the initial stage, 1500-1800 tonnes of rock were lifted per day from the mine which later dropped to 500 tonnes only.
Against the backdrop of dropped production, Belarus-based Germania Trest Consortium (GTC) was appointed in 2014 for rock mining and maintenance of the site. Later, the agreement between MGMCL and GTC was extended by one year in August last year.
The company’s workers working in three shifts producing 5000 tonnnes per day. The MGMCL earned Tk 7 crore 26 lakh profits in the 2018-2019 fiscal year while Tk 22 crore in FY 2020-2021.
Engineer Abu Daud Muhammad Fariduzzaman, the Director-General of MGMCL, said many mining projects had cut their workforce to tackle the situation during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
