DHAKA, Jul 5 (NNN-XINHUA) – Construction of Bangladesh’s Ghorashal-Polash Urea fertiliser project (GPUFP), the country’s largest, and first ever green fertiliser factory, once completed, has been carrying on smoothly despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
More than 300 engineers and skilled workers from the China National Chemical Engineering & Construction Corporation Seven Ltd, in collaboration with its Japanese partner, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, are working round the clock, while strictly maintaining health safety guidelines, in order to complete the mega project as scheduled.
Launched in Aug, 2019, the project is scheduled to complete in 2023. Once completed, it will become the biggest fertiliser factory in Bangladesh. And it will also become the first ever green fertiliser factory in Bangladesh, with no pollutants emitted.
“All carbon dioxide will be captured, no carbon dioxide will go to the ambient, and as well, other liquid effluent will not go to surface waters outside, before treatment. We may say, it is the first green fertiliser (factory) in Bangladesh,” GPUFP project manager, Mohammad Rajiour Rahman Mollick, told Xinhua recently, at the construction site.
Talking about Chinese and Japanese partners, selected through international competition, he said, “We’re very happy and very glad. We are able to select these two famous companies worldwide.”
With an estimated daily production capacity of 2,800 metric tonnes, officials said, the factory, located in Narsingdi district, some 51 km north-east of the national capital, Dhaka, will help Bangladesh meet the growing demand for fertiliser, in its efforts to ensure food security, once completed.
Mollick said, there are many projects in Bangladesh where the Chinese government, Chinese privately-owned enterprises and Chinese businessmen are working on. The Chinese government is helping the Bangladeshi government in the country’s development, he said.
“So we are very grateful to China, as well as to Japan,” he said.
Meanwhile, he noted, “We maintain the COVID management procedure very strictly.”
For example, he said, everybody should wear a mask and sanitize their hands and maintain social distancing.
Al Amin Howlader, a project official working for the Chinese contractor company, said, “Also, if they’re talking with each other, they need to maintain distance. Without mask, they cannot enter into the project site.”
Disinfection practices are duly performed in every building and every office inside the construction zone, in order to ensure safety of all the people against the pandemic.
If someone felt unwell, immediately he or she would be sent to the isolation centre, and if preliminary treatment failed to work, the sick person would be transferred to the capital Dhaka, according to Mollick.
By strictly following the precautionary measures, he said, the Chinese engineers and the workers have been able to continue the construction work despite the pandemic. “That is why there is (such) good progress of the project. If you visit the site, then you (can) see that the progress is good.”– NNN-XINHUA
