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Dhaka Friday,  Mar 29, 2024

Bangladesh got Indian Power

Bangladesh on Friday started drawing power from the Indian grid on a trial basis through a 103-kilometre high-voltage transmission line between Baharampur in Pashchim Banga and Bheramara in Kushtia, officials said.
Power Grid Company of Bangladesh is coordinating the transmission from India to Bangladesh.
‘The Indian side started feeding power into the grid at 10:45am. We are checking the flow by up to 175MW,’ the PGCB managing director, Chowdhury Alamgir Hossain, told New Age.
He said that the test transmission would continue till September 29 and the company would prepare a report on the test transmission the next day.
On October 5, the Indian prime minister Monmohan Singh through a video conference will inaugurate the commercial power transmission
to Bangladesh. The Bangladesh prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, will be at the Bheramara substation during the inauguration, officials said.
The commercial transmission will begin with 175MW while it would take more than a month to reach the transmission to 500MW.
Out of the 500MW, 250MW will be imported from the Indian central government’s unallocated quota, which is usually supplied to different states of India. The rest 250MW will be imported from India’s private sector.
Indian Central Electricity Regulatory Commission has set the price of the public sector power.
The NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam will supply 250MW for 25 years for more than Tk 6 a unit (kilowatt-hour) until the CERC re-fixes the price.
Private-sector PTC India Limited will supply the rest 250MW to Bangladesh for three years for Tk 6.7 a unit.
In February, the Power Development Board signed a power purchase agreement with the NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam fopr the import of 250MW from India’s unallocated quota.
The power board, however, is yet to sign a power purchase contract with PTC India Limited.
‘The [delay in] contract signing would not hamper the beginning of power import because the price has been set. What remains to be done is signing the papers,’ a power division official said.
Bangladesh has finishing laying a 29-kilometre high-voltage interconnectivity transmission line at Bheramara in Kushtia in Bangladesh while India has laid out a 74-kilometre transmission line in its side.

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