(North Bengal Development Forum (NBDF) held a Seminar in collaboration with Energy & Power magazine on May 19 last at CIRDAP Auditorium in Dhaka. Salahud Din Ahmed, Member, Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission, among the dignitaries, spoke in the seminar.  On our request he sent us a write-up including some important points he had made in the discussion that we believe will interest all -- the politicians, young MPs & other national & local leaders, entrepreneurs, govt. officials in administration, agriculture, police & other departments.

We today bring out the second & last part of the write-up.)

Shonar Bangla from Solar Bangla

Salahud Din Ahmed

Growing Rice with 70% Less Irrigation

Very recently researchers of Bangladesh Agricultural University has 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 & Dinajpur. It saves a huge money & 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 & 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-Centers in the North

Bangladesh Computer Council, BCC is implementing a project of setting up Community E-Centers, CEC in various Upazila Parishad Buildings. BCC do not pay any salary or benefits to persons running the Centers, they will have to run these from fees earned by providing service. The Centers will provide information service regarding livelihood of local people, advisory services on agriculture, education, health & other essential information. 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, of course not affecting overall plan of the government, setting up of more such centers in other places if they take fare care of the ones going to start this July.

If the Leaders try, they can arrange to run all their CEC by solar power.

Bagerhat Police Set 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 offered in the area. After that, the boys not only gave up mischief-making, 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 enthusiastic police official took personal initiative and set up a quite different kind of computer Center 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. I am optimistic that with many other Amulya & Awlads in administration, army, police, education, social welfare and all other departments, they can set even brighter examples in the North, and all over. 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 & smarter police. These will be inspiring examples for others. In fact for such initiatives, they do not even need big help; only thing required is the positive attitude & a little encouragement from the local public representative and other leaders. These projects become more useful & sustainable with wider participation of various groups.

Leaders & officials interested to know more about various programs Amader Gram runs, with an idea of doing something like Amulya or Awlad did, may please open:

http://www.amadergram.org/ 

Of course there are many other similar organizations that can help you bring positive changes in the life of people in your area. Some of you, I know, are so potent that you only wish, and it happens! We, the optimists, wait to tell others who will still be lagging, your success stories.

Honouring Heroes

About 35,000 hectares of cultivated rice used to be affected in North, mostly in greater Rangpur as there was no flood-tolerant variety available for the growers. BRRI has brought two varieties, Brridhaan 51 & 52. Of late, three short duration varieties have also been evolved that has curbed decades-long Monga that hit the poors there. Pariza, a local rice variety which was on the verge of extinction, 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 & Amon, a time period when the land used to remain only uncultivated so far. 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 & young MPS can look at sites like those follow and do something positive & 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 talk about a little later. 

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=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 & agricultural extension department of the government.  

There are many other big & small innovations happened in the North, bringing many a pieces of good news. Our Local Leaders can make a lot of good out of these. Like a young man started making bio-fertilizer very successfully. He can well be encouraged & 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 thousands of Taka. Though sounds simple, it can help the farmers save time, labour & 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 recent report has it that Thailand encourages growing Orchids by popularising it through airlines passengers. At Rangpur in the North we hear about efforts of growing Orchids. If the national airlines cannot, we can get help of our thriving private airlines who will rather be happy doing so for the North, and for the country.

The medicinal plants grown in Natore can be well extended to other parts of the North. Leaders can help it flourish, encourage setting up of its pharmaceuticals and help to  ease export of their products.

A host of people like educated scientists, management specialists from home & abroad are at times in touch with us talking about prospects of business. Some of them took early retirement 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 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 & 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 & engines.

This time I will talk about not only smart businessman-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 of thousands of poor rural families finding some source of earning and ridding themselves of starvation. Not too far, to see & 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

Should not we be generous in thanking the Mutual Trust Bank for opening the first-ever Branch in Bangladesh run on solar power in Ishwardi? We heard about their new product MTB Green Energy through which they lend for Renewables. It is indeed great to know that they have financed a big Solar Irrigation Project. Credit should also go for Governor, Bangladesh Bank & his passionate team for encouraging Banks. In fact, they can only revolutionize power scenario of the country in no time. I am sure, Mutual Trust Bank will soon open such other branches, particularly in the North. Other banks will also 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 village & our town while their urban counterparts do all these with much comfort? GTZ-Bangladesh is spreading improved, efficient health- & environment-friendly stoves called Bondhu Chula (Friend Stove) developed by science lab (BCSIR). It gives much less of smoke, burn much less of firewood. GTZ started a magnificent project that involves enthusiastic & 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 pain & 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 & 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 & 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 some other way start growing Jatropha in a huge strip on the roadside & other fallow places. Oil from the plants can straight be sent to irrigation pumps of the respective locality 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 the 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 & a gravestone) – a Legislator from North or leader from South; a Professor from East or Bureaucrat from West!

*All views, ideas & suggestions are only personal but the writer is very keen on any endeavor aiming at improving the life of people in the North Bengal or anywhere else. He eagerly awaits inspiration from all who may please mail to din6174@yahoo.com