THE country is blessed with a proven reserve of more than 2000 million tons of high quality bituminous coal in Jamalganj, Barapukuria, Khalashpir, Phulbari and Dighipara coal basins. Barapukuria Coal Mine has been developed and commercial coal production has started. Maddhapara Granite Mine is going to start commercial production very soon. Both these underground coal and granite mines have been developed by Chinese and North Korean Mining Companies on turnkey contract basis respectively.

Since Bangladesh does not have adequate mining professionals, experts, engineers, technicians, supervisors, etc. in the mining sector, these two underground mines have been developed and put into production by hiring mining people starting from grassroots level to top executives from China and North Korea. These

prove that the country is relying too much on foreign mining contractors. Under the prevailing situation these contractors are not only delaying the completion of the projects but perhaps also making it difficult for Bangladesh to take over the mine expeditiously.

Under the above circumstances it has become utmost necessary to develop mining experts, mining engineers, mineral technologists, mining geologists, mine technicians, mine supervisors, etc. in the country in order to exploit huge coal deposits in particular, and other minerals in general, within shortest possible time. To start with it has become extremely important to set up a mining engineering department in any private or public University of Engineering and Technology in Bangladesh to produce graduate mining engineers.

Mining engineering programme

Mining Engineering is concerned with safe, economic and environ-

mentally sustainable recovery, processing and marketing of mineral resources from the earth. Mining Engineering degree programme includes elements from Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Geology, Geophysics, Geochemistry, Metallurgy, Commerce, Economics and Management. This means that graduates in mining engineering within this framework are very versatile and can progress rapidly both within the mining industry and in the sectors affiliated to the industry. Mining Engineering is an international profession. The Mining Engineering graduates will have the flexibility and opportunity to work in the areas such as mine operation, mine management, technical design, engineering design, mine environmental engineering, risk management, technology development, mine planning and design, financial evaluation, feasibility studies, policy formulation, administration regulation with

the government and other organisations.

Objectives: The objectives of the programme are to ensure that mining engineering graduates have gained sufficient underlying science and engineering knowledge together with an understanding of mine safety, mine management, rock mechanics, mining technologies and the mine environment to begin practicing as young professional engineers. The programme is intended to gradually build on the knowledge and skills of a student over the four years of programme, commencing with fundamentals of science and engineering and progressing on to specialties of mining engineering.

Outline: The Department of Mining Engineering in the private/public university in Bangladesh will offer a four-year full time programme in Mining Engineering leading to the award of the degree of Bachelor of Science in Engineering. Year-1 and 2 of the course will be similar to that of

other engineering courses and primarily concerned with educating the students in basic science and engineering principles. However, 25 per cent of each year will be for applying this learning to basic elements of mining engineering and introducing the students to risk management, reporting, and presentation techniques and computing technologies in a mining engineering context. Year-3 will be largely devoted to basic mining courses. Year-4 will provide advanced instructions in mine operational courses and focus on integrating all the elements of the programme in the form of an investigative thesis and a full mine planning and operation.

Compulsory training: It will be obligatory for individual student to take one-month (30 days) practical training course after the completion of 1st, 2nd and 3rd year courses. The students will take these training courses in Barapukuria underground coal mine, Maddhapara underground

granite mine, proposed Khalashpir coal mine, Takerghatlimestone quarry, Bijoypur white clay and any new mining projects that may be undertaken in any private and public sector. A foreign trip to India or China or Indonesia will be an attractive and useful step to enlighten the students with the state of the art technologies in mining.

Entry to 4-year Programme: Any candidate with Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) Science Group with GPA-4.0/or Diploma in Mining Engineering may enter into 3rd year of the Graduate Programme.

Course description

Year-1: Introduction to Mining Engineering, Mathematics-1 , Physics, Applied Mechanics, Geology for Mining Engineers, Mining Industry Practice, Materials for Mining Engineers, Chemistry-1, Mathematics-2.

Year-2: Structural Mechanics, Fluids and Thermodynamics, Mining Data Analysis (Statistics),

Engineering Math-1, Mining Project Development, Mining Stress Analysis, Mine Surveying, Engineering Maths-2, Electric Power Engineering.

Year-3: Mine Geology, Mine Geomechanics, Excavation Engineering, Handling and Storage of Explosives, Mine Infrastructures and Services, Mine Economics and Business System, Coal Mining Systems, Metal Mining Systems, Mine Workplace Environment, Mineral Processing.

Year-4: Mine Planning, Geotechnical Engineering, Mining Geomechanics, Mining Law, Mining Industries Applications, Coal Mine Design and Evaluation, Metal Mine Design and Evaluation, Environmental and Social Impacts of Mining, Mine Simulation and Modelling.

Resource personnel

The Mining Engineering degree programme includes about 60 per-

cent elements from Mining and about 40 percent from Mechanical, Electrical, Civil Engineering and Geology, Geophysics, Metallurgy, Commerce, Economics and Management. This 40 percent of non-mining elements of the courses may be covered by drawing resource personnel from BUET (Dhaka), DUET (Gazipur), University of Dhaka, University of Rajshahi, any other university of engineering and technology etc. As regards 60 percent mining elements, 30 percent may be covered from the mining engineering professionals who are presently actively associated with the mining activities in the country. The rest 30 percent resource personnel may be hired from India, Australia, China, UK, etc, as visiting professors.

Engr AKM Shamsuddin is a mining engineer and former Managing Director, Pashchimanchal Gas Co. Ltd. (PGCL).