The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Penden Cement Authority limited (PCAL), one of the large scale industries in Gomtu town recently had a problem with the bag house (Woven fabric cloth) which captures the dust particles from flowing outside.
The issue however did not warrant alarm bells for the factory or the community nearby.
The head of productions of PCAL, Samdrup said “The plant’s bag house was majorly worn-out but we replaced it immediately and it will be started today”.
The factory noticed the problem on 25 October.
Samdrup said that there was no probable negative effect to the residents of Gomtu town because of the bag house damage and it did not make any difference to their day-to-day production since the problem was not prolonged.
However the damage did cause emissions meaning that dust particles had gone out of stack in the form of fine particles.
“If the dust particles are more than 10 microns, there is no effect on human beings however if it is less than 10, there will be some negative effect but not so major,” he said.
“The quality used in the back house is very good, we have been using glass fabric back filters and it is resistant to high temperature of 270 degree Celsius. It has lasted for more than 10 years and have never replaced it after it was installed once,” Samdrup said.
Since this time there was a major worn-out and replacement was needed immediately to avoid emission which could hamper the health of the people and also loss of cement in the form of dust particles.
There are in total seven compartments, containing 840 bags and in each compartments there are 120 bags.
Each bag cost Nu 7500 and a total of 240 bags will be replaced for two compartments as these bags were worn out very badly, while the other bags are still in good condition.
Talking to some of the residents of Gomtu, Sonam Choden a housewife said that she did not notice anything and was relieved to know that the problem was solved right away.
While a truck driver in the locality said it would not have made much impact to the people since the place is always so dusty and having such problem in addition would not add much problem.
Sonam Wangmo / Thimphu
