Value addition: A lot of bricks worth millions of bills

Ghulam Kharjo uses cancelled bank notes to bake bricks at kiln.

SUKKUR: Paddy husk is the main source of fuel for regular brick kiln workers. For Ghulam Sarwar Kharjo, the story is, however, different. Heaps of defaced and cancelled banknotes go into the oven at his kiln in Patni, a village 15 kilometres away from Sukkur, to bake bricks.

In the outskirts of Sukkur, labourer Abdullah is seen throwing bags full of shredded banknotes and paddy husk into the oven. “We bake the bricks with this precious fuel,” he said. The irony though is that with so many banknotes they are poor.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Kharjo said that all brick kiln owners use paddy husk because it maintains proper heat to bake bricks. “Besides using paddy husk, I use cancelled and shredded banknotes at my kiln,” he said.

A friend of his in the State Bank of Pakistan Sukkur branch had told him that huge stocks of cancelled bank notes were destroyed by the bank. “I went to the bank and talked to the authorities. They agreed to give me the stock on the condition that it will be burnt to ashes,” he added.

According to him, earlier, the bank authorities were burning these cancelled banknotes in the building but residents would complain about pollution and fine particles in the air. The bank then tried to sell this wasted stock to cardboard factories for recycling. “But, after the first experience, they refused to take the stock, because the paper was not properly recycled.”

He agreed that the method is risky, as he does not know if the shredded bills can be used for baking bricks, but he has entered into a two-year agreement with the bank and brought truckloads of bills.

Initially, residents thronged the brick kiln to try their luck, but the banknotes are shredded into very small pieces and are worthless. Earlier, people use to stop by the brick kiln and have a look at the bills but now they don’t pay attention any more, said the owner. “I am baking the first lot of bricks with a mix of shredded banknotes and paddy husk. Let’s wait for the results.”

According to him, bricks need proper heat for baking. If the heat increases or decreases, bricks will not bake properly, resulting in a loss. “I have paid nothing to the bank rather helped them clear the stock,” he said.

State Bank of Pakistan Sukkur branch chief manager Malik Mohammad Ashraf was not available for comments. But his personal assistant, Mohammad Usman, told The Express Tribune that commercial banks and individual persons usually exchange defaced and cancelled notes with the bank and, therefore, a large quantity of such bills accumulate with them. “We have our own burning unit for destroying such notes, but there are many problems in the process,” he added.

After accepting damaged bills from people and commercial banks, the bank cancels them and shreds them into small pieces. “We have now given the stock to a contractor and asked him to ensure that the bills are burnt completely,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2014.