Experts have assured the people that the Sundarbans would not be affected after construction of the Rampal coal-fired power plant.
They said there is no scientific or technical basis of the campaign being carried out by different groups of people that construction of the proposed Rampal power plant near the Sundarbans would cause a colossal damage to the largest mangrove forest in the world.
The engineering and technical experts having vast experiences at home and abroad gave their bold statements that the proposed power plant would not harm the environment due to use of modern equipment in the plant.
They joined a seminar on Saturday at Gulshan in the city on the environmental impact over the government plan to construct a coal-fired power plant at Rampal to bring the southern part of the country under electricity coverage aimed at developing the region.
Suchinta Foundation organised the seminar with its chairman professor Mohammad A Arafat as moderator, while State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid delivered his speech as the chief guest.
In his speech, Nasrul shared his experiences of visiting a coal-fired power plant in India and said there is no smoke, sound and environmental pollution in the plant area.
“I advised journalists, who were with me during the visit, to go inside the power plant and check whether it is harmful or not, as the plant having electricity generation capacity of 5,000 megawatts,” he said.
The state minister said that the government would construct more coal-fired power plants in the country like in Moheshkhali and other areas for increasing power generation capacity, as reserves of the natural gas are being declined gradually.
