Published : 29 Aug 2026, 05:42 AM
Updated : 08 Sep 2026, 09:36 AM
Inside a small factory in the northern district of Bogura, iron is melted every day before being cast into parts for farm machinery, irrigation pumps, small engines, pistons, and gears.
For years, that process came with an unavoidable sight: heaps of coal, clouds of black smoke, and ash settling around the workers.
Now the smoke is largely gone.
At Sarkar Metal and Engineering, owner Md Shihab Uddin Sarkar has replaced his coal-fired cupola furnace with an electric induction furnace. A change he says has cut production costs by 20 to 30 percent while improving the quality of his products.
It is one example of how cleaner technology is beginning to reshape the sprawling light-engineering industry of Bogura -- often referred to as "the gateway to North Bengal" -- where small businesses are finding that reducing pollution and waste can also make commercial sense.
When Shihab started the business in 2015, the cupola furnace was at the heart of his factory. Melting iron required large quantities of coal. Once the furnace was fired up, smoke and ash spread through the workshop.
The factory produced what it needed, but rising coal prices, wasted metal and pollution all added to the cost.
“The numbers did not add up,” Shihab recalled. No matter how carefully the process was managed, some metal would be lost — while the smoke disappearing through the chimney was a cost that never appeared in the accounts.
The change began in 2024 when he joined a training programme built around a relatively simple idea: use fewer raw materials and less energy to produce more, while polluting less.
In engineering terminology, it is known as Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production, or RECP.
For Shihab, the attraction was more straightforward: doing the same work at lower cost by wasting less metal.
After the training, an induction furnace was installed at his factory.
Unlike a cupola furnace, it does not burn coal. Electricity generates electromagnetic induction to melt the metal directly. That means no coal smoke, no ash and no black piles of fuel beside the furnace.
But replacing old technology is expensive for a small entrepreneur.
Shihab received a Tk 1 million loan as well as grant support towards the new furnace. Workers were also given protective equipment and occupational health and safety training.
“After installing the new furnace, my production costs have fallen by 20 to 30 percent,” he said. “I’m getting good reviews from customers now. Everyone says the product quality has improved.”
He says production waste has also fallen to almost zero.
The difference between the two technologies is stark.
According to the project data cited in the report, producing one tonne of goods with a conventional cupola furnace required about 100kg of coal and released around 550kg of carbon dioxide, while roughly 10 percent of the raw material was lost.
With the induction furnace, coal is eliminated and raw-material waste has fallen to around 5 percent.
There is another business advantage.
A cupola furnace was largely suited to cast iron. The induction furnace can melt steel, cast iron, aluminium, copper and brass.
The same factory can therefore make a wider range of products and reach new customers.
Shihab has also planted more than 1,200 fruit and forest trees on his factory land — part of an effort to challenge the idea that industry must inevitably mean smoke and pollution.
And his experience is spreading.
Across Bogura’s light-engineering cluster, other entrepreneurs are installing new furnaces, upgrading machinery and putting solar panels on factory roofs.
The changes are being supported by the Sustainable Microenterprise and Resilient Transformation, or SMART, a project of the Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF).
Funded by the government and the World Bank, the project is being implemented across Bangladesh.
In Bogura and Naogaon, PKSF partner Gram Unnayan Karma (GAK) is working to bring around 1,000 small metal and light-engineering entrepreneurs under the programme.
Businesses first receive training. They can then receive grants for specific technological improvements and microcredit to run their operations. The grants do not have to be repaid.
The improvements vary from factory to factory.
At one light-engineering unit in the BSCIC industrial estate, a power factor improvement, or PFI, panel has been installed to reduce electricity losses.
The machines operate as before, but less power is wasted, trimming electricity costs.
Another factory has installed rooftop solar panels. When there is enough sunlight, machinery runs on solar power, with electricity from the national grid supplementing it when needed.
Ria Engineering Works, Redwan Engineering Works and Haque Metal Workshop have been developed as model workshops, combining solar panels with LED lighting, transparent roofing and improved ventilation.
Some workshops have also put computer-controlled CNC machines beside their old lathes.
Previously, a worker had to measure and shape each component manually, leaving more room for errors.
Now a design can be entered into a computer and the CNC machine produces component after component to the specified dimensions.
That saves time and reduces raw-material waste.
Turning Waste into Bricks
Bogura’s status as a light-engineering hub creates another problem: industrial waste. Its metal-casting foundries generate hard, dark residue known as foundry slag after metal is melted.
For years, workshop owners saw little use for it. Getting rid of the waste cost money, required space and created environmental problems when it was dumped in open areas or beside roads.
Now some of that slag is being crushed, processed and mixed with cement and sand to make blocks and tiles. And a new business has begun to grow around processing the waste.
Taklimur Rahman, proprietor of ZH Star Bricks and Blocks Ltd in Bogura Sadar, remembers when foundries simply worried about where to dispose of it.
“It was a problem in itself,” he said. “It took up space and cost money to remove.”
There are more than 75 metal-casting foundries across Bogura’s light-engineering hub, he said, with the melting process leaving substantial quantities of toxic, stone-like slag.
Workshop owners once spent heavily to have the waste taken away and dumped.
Taklimur, meanwhile, used to make concrete building blocks using stone imported at high cost and crushed at his factory.
Under the PKSF project, he was trained to experiment with foundry slag as an alternative raw material.
A heavy-duty slag-crushing machine supplied through PKSF pulverises the dense waste into fine particles, which he then used to make experimental uni-blocks.
The blocks were sent to the Housing and Building Research Institute for testing, where the official results for compressive strength were positive.
He has been using the method ever since.
“Discarded slag is not only usable; it is as strong as stone,” Taklimur said.
His factory now processes foundry waste to produce around 250,000 eco-friendly hollow blocks, uni-blocks and solid bricks each month.
He says the new method has reduced his production costs to about two-thirds of their previous level.
The blocks are priced roughly in line with conventional bricks, he said, but their larger size means builders can also use less cement-and-sand mortar.
Working Conditions Change Too
The transformation is not limited to machines.
Workshops are also introducing relatively simple safety measures — protective glasses for cutting metal, gloves for welding and safer electrical connections in place of exposed wiring.
The aim is to make the factories safer as well as more efficient.
PKSF’s SMART project aims to bring about 80,000 microenterprises across Bangladesh under environmentally friendly and climate-resilient production systems by 2028.
Project Coordinator AKM Zahirul Haque said much of the small-enterprise sector remained trapped in outdated technology, limiting productivity.
“The entire microenterprise sector is caught in a web of old technology,” he said.
“To break out of this vicious cycle, our first step has been to transfer modern and advanced technology.”
In Bogura, he said, entrepreneurs had replaced coal-fired furnaces with electric ones and introduced CNC machines alongside manual equipment, allowing them to increase productivity substantially.
The programme is also encouraging businesses to use energy and water more efficiently, improve workplace conditions and worker safety, and develop stronger brand identities and certifications to reach better markets.
Solar installations are already helping some factories reduce monthly electricity consumption, Zahirul said.
Bogura could see a much bigger industrial expansion ahead.
The government is planning a new industrial park covering nearly 400 acres for small and medium-sized enterprises in the district.
During a visit to Bogura this month, Commerce Minister Khandaker Abdul Muktadir said efforts were under way to begin work on the park next winter.
He described Bogura as having the potential to become one of Bangladesh’s important centres of industrial and economic growth, particularly in light engineering.
The government, he said, was working to create the infrastructure and supporting environment needed to realise that potential.
Zahirul argues that cleaner technology could ultimately have an impact well beyond individual factory floors.
Lower production costs and better quality could make Bogura’s engineering businesses more competitive at home. Reduced pollution could improve environmental health around industrial areas, while safer workplaces could help businesses retain skilled workers.
And if the sector becomes more competitive nationally, he says, Bangladesh could reduce its reliance on imported components, while opening export opportunities for some products.
