Plan To Import Power From India in Limbo.

With the Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) putting on hold the release of its promised fund, the government's plan to import power from neighbouring India is now in limbo.

The ADB is delaying the disbursement of its committed fund for implementation of the project for reasons of non-signing of a power purchase deal between Bangladeshi and Indian state-owned firms, a senior Power Grid Corporation of Bangladesh (PGCB) official said.

The multilateral capital donor agency was expected to initiate disbursing fund from March this year to install a sub-station and overhead transmission lines to facilitate import of around 250 megawatts (mw) power by Bangladesh from India by 2012, a top government official said.

But ADB is yet to release even the first installment of the project loan, he said.

Manila-based donor agency -- ADB -- has committed to provide around US$100 million credit to set up a sub-station and lay overhead electricity transmission lines on the Bangladesh side for import of power.

The official could not confirm when the power purchase agreement (PPA) between Indian and Bangladeshi firms will be signed.

Power ministry officials said the PPA between the state-owned Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) and the Indian electricity supplier National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) was scheduled to be signed in March last when a NTPC team visited Bangladesh.

But the differences in views over the terms and conditions of the proposed PPA are delaying the formal signing, the PGCB official said.

The government has already contracted out the task of laying down overhead transmission line and installing a power sub-station to Spanish Cobra and German Siemens respectively.

Under the contract, Siemens is to build the sub-station under a project worth $107 million and Cobra Instalaciones Y Servicios SA is assigned with the task of laying the electricity transmission line for the project at a cost of around $15 million.

The government of Bangladesh is also set to bear some expenditures to implement both the projects to import electricity from India.

Spanish Cobra has been given the responsibility to construct a double-circuit (DC) overhead 40 km long 400-kilovolt (kv) transmission line from Bangram on the India-Bangladesh border up to Bheramara in Bangladesh.

Siemens will set up a sub-station at Bheramara to convert 400kv high voltage Indian electricity to Bangladesh's existing 230kv transmission line.

The government is eyeing to import 250 mw of electricity initially, once the infrastructure is built by 2012.

The infrastructure will facilitate importing up to 500 mw of electricity from India.

The BPDB is set to purchase electricity from the Indian plant at the rate fixed by India's energy regulator.

The PGCB would get wheeling charges from the PDB for bringing power from the Indian national grid.

The wheeling charge will be fixed based on the quantity of electricity to be traded and the distance to the user's end.

Bangladesh and India have already signed a 35-year power transmission deal to import electricity.

The deal also keeps provision for Bangladesh to export power to India in the future.

The country requires ramping up electricity supplies as the overall generation is now hovering around 4,500 mw against the peak-hour demand for over 6,500 mw.

Annual electricity demand growth in Bangladesh is now around 7.5 per cent.

Less than half of its 160 million plus population has access to electricity, which is one of the lowest in the world.

Source : thefinancialexpress-bd.com