Stone and sand trading

About the business

Buying stone and sand lifted from rivers and sand mahals, loading it on trucks and selling it into the construction market. Tetulia in Panchagarh is the country's stone belt: the district has 19 government-leased stone mahals, all in rivers. The material changes hands four times. Worker gangs lift stone from the riverbed with a jakhla and a donga and sell it by the tractor load; in December 2025 at Balabari a tractor of about 100 cubic feet was selling for Tk 8,000, of which Tk 1,000 went to the owner of the submerged plot, and at the end of the day each of the nineteen workers took home at most Tk 600. A local small trader or mahajan buys that, a crusher owner buys from him, and third-tier traders from around the country take the crushed stone away. Lessees collect a toll off the trucks: Tk 500 for a ten-wheeler, Tk 300 for a six-wheeler. On 28 June 2026 the Dhaka market was paying Tk 123-125 a cubic foot for local three-quarter stone and Tk 130-140 for Bhutanese stone, with selection sand at Tk 17-27, Sylhet red sand at Tk 37-45 and fill sand at Tk 8-12. Distance sets the price: the truck fare from Panchagarh to Dhaka is the single biggest cost. The law is hard. Under the Sand Mahal and Soil Management Act 2010 no underground sand may be lifted by pump or dredger at all, nothing may be taken near a bridge, dam, road or railway or within one kilometre of a residential area, and breaking that carries up to two years in prison, a fine of Tk 50,000 to Tk 10 lakh, and confiscation of the dredger and the vehicles.

Unit economics

What you need to start

• Tractors and trucks, owned or hired, a measuring tape and cubic-foot arithmetic, and for traditional lifting a jakhla, a donga and an iron net. No machine may be used to lift stone.Equipment
• Sand mahal lease from the Deputy Commissioner. Under section 13 of the Sand Mahal and Soil Management Act 2010 (Act 62 of 2010, amended by Act 35 of 2023) the lease runs one year, 1 Baishakh to 30 Chaitra. Under section 10 the government may take a security deposit over and above the lease price, forfeit it on breach, and impose six-monthly digital survey or CCTV monitoring. The lease price varies by mahal and is stated in the notice.Licence
• TIN and VAT registration from the National Board of Revenue. Without both, bills cannot be raised against contractors, developers or government projects.Licence
• Trade licence from the city corporation or municipality: form Tk 10, licence book Tk 50, standard tax Tk 30, non-judicial stamp Tk 150-300, licence fee Tk 100-60,000 by trade type, plus VAT and signboard fee.Licence
• Judging cubic feet by eye, knowing stone sizes and grades, and pricing backwards from the truck fare. Buy on a wrong measure and the whole consignment loses money.Skill
• A lessee or a pit worker gang, and a crusher owner for graded stone. In Panchagarh the toll collection is controlled by the District Stone and Sand Joint Federation, a front of six lessee organisations.Supplier
• A depot or yard with room for trucks to come and go. Piling on the highway itself brings trouble from the highway police and the roads department.Workspace

How the work is done

1. 1Decide which rung you will sit on: lessee, pit-head mahajan, crusher owner, or a town depot selling on. The money, the risk and the paperwork are different for each.
2. 2Go to the Deputy Commissioner's office for the list of sand and stone mahals, the lease notice and the government lease price. Leases run for one year, 1 Baishakh to 30 Chaitra.
3. 3Check for yourself whether the spot is prohibited. No sand or soil may be taken near a bridge, culvert, dam, embankment, road, highway, forest, railway line or important installation, or within at least one kilometre of a residential area.
4. 4Put underground sand out of your mind: lifting sand or soil from below ground by pump, dredging or any other means is completely prohibited, and bulkhead or bulgate dredgers are not allowed either.
5. 5Take the trade licence from the city corporation or municipality and get a TIN and VAT registration from the NBR; contractors and government projects will not pay a bill without them.
6. 6Fix a yard for the stock, and keep it off the highway. In Panchagarh the piles along both sides of the Banglabandha highway have brought both complaints and enforcement.
7. 7Line up trucks and tractors and fix the fare in advance. On long hauls the fare is the largest part of the price, and there are transport syndicates.
8. 8Budget for the lessee's toll. In Tetulia lessees take Tk 500 per ten-wheel truck and Tk 300 per six-wheel truck, and they collect it on stone lifted from outside the lease area too.
9. 9Line up buyers: crusher owners, contractors, developers, brick kilns or block factories. Price moves with size and grade, so learn which size goes to which buyer first.
10. 10If you supply government work, understand the billing cycle first. Contractors are still working to a four-year-old government rate schedule, and when prices rise they are the first to slow their offtake.
11. 11Keep the paper for every consignment: where it was lifted, whose lease, which truck carried it. When a mobile court stops you, the paper is the only defence.

Sources

• বালুমহাল ও মাটি ব্যবস্থাপনা আইন, ২০১০ (২০১০ সনের ৬২ নং আইন), ২০২৩ সনের ৩৫ নং আইন দ্বারা সংশোধিত — ধারা ৪, ৫, ৮, ১০, ১৩ ও ১৫

  Collected: 16 Sept 2026

  Supports: Starting capital, Time to first revenue · বাংলাদেশ

• সিটি কর্পোরেশন থেকে ট্রেড লাইসেন্স প্রাপ্তির ধাপ সমূহ

  Collected: 16 Sept 2026

  Supports: Starting capital · বাংলাদেশ

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