Explosive Directorate goes with a weak management

The Directorate of Explosive under the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources is moving in wrong direction in charge of a chief inspector known to be a civil engineer responsible for properly regulating commercial explosives and flammable materials in Bangladesh.

He is not an expert in petroleum and chemical engineering. However, this sector is the main scope of the directorate. As a result, unprecedented complications have arisen in the approval, investment and production activities of industrial plants, the report says.

In a written application to the Secretary of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources on August 20, 2025, a high-ranking official of a gas bottling company directly described the situation as "like plowing with a goat". According to him, appointing a qualified petroleum or chemical engineer as the head of explosives will increase the quality and effectiveness of decision-making many times over.

Long-windedness in the name of approval:

According to the latest information from the directorate, the approval process of about 127 industrial projects has been stuck on various pretexts in the last one year. Of these, 47 chemical factories, 38 petroleum storage and distribution units and at least 20 LPG terminal licenses are pending. According to the Bangladesh Petroleum Association, it is now taking an average of 6-9 months to verify and approve documents, whereas according to international standards, this period should be a maximum of 2 months.

Entrepreneurs' cry:

The director of an oil importing company in the capital told this reporter on his mobile phone,

"After we submitted the documents, the files were returned on minor technical grounds.

However, a chemical expert could have solved these problems within a few hours." The owner of a chemical factory in Narayanganj, who did not want to be named, expressed his anger and told the reporter, "We have been running for six months for approval to install new tankers for the expansion of the factory. But no decision is being made. We are losing lakhs of taka every day due to this delay."

Industry sources say that due to this impasse, investments worth around Tk 3,000 crore have already been put at risk. Several proposals from foreign investors have also been stalled.

Ministry's silence:

Despite serious allegations, the top echelons of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources are still silent. Internal sources say that the issue of wrong appointments is being discussed within the ministry, but no decision has been reached yet.
Policymaking in the face of questions:

The industry is raising questions as to why incompetent leadership has been installed in sensitive sectors like the country's energy security and industrial development. They fear that if this continues, Bangladesh will lag behind neighboring countries in the competition for industrial development.