With all eyes on the much-hyped opening of Padma Bridge which is slated for June 25, a study suggests Bangladesh can still construct "three such bridges or nine Karnaphuli River tunnels in Chittagong or even four metro railways in Dhaka".
This happens if the country does not pay around $11.01 billion in capacity charge to the authorities of the 1600MW Adani Godda Power Plant in the Indian state of Jharkhand over its 25 years lifetime.
The report -- co-published by the Bangladesh Working Group on External Debt (BWGED) and India-based Growthwatch on Monday -- says the amount is to be paid in line with a power purchase agreement (PPA) between Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) and the Indian Adani Group.
Capacity charge or payment is the amount of money that the government pays to the power plants that are sitting idle due to no electricity demand.
Comparing the capacity payment to the amount spent to build Padma Bridge, BWGED Member Secretary Hasan Mehedi said: "The sum of money is also nine times higher than the budget of Karnaphuli River Tunnel and more than four times than the Dhaka Metro Rail."
The state-run BPDB signed a memorandum of understanding with the Indian Adani Group during the visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Dhaka in June 2015 to import electricity from Jharkhand.
After a long negotiation, the two sides signed two final deals— PPA and implementation agreement (IA)—in November 2017.
As per the deals, Adani will set up the 1600 MW coal-fired power plant in Godda, Jharkhand of which the first unit will start commercial operation within 44 months and the second unit within 50 months.
Bangladesh will import electricity from the plant over a period of 25 years at a tariff of 8.612 US cents per unit.
A Power Division document reveals that Bangladesh will pay about $23.87 billion, equivalent to Tk 1.9 trillion, over the next 25 years to the Indian Adani Group to purchase the electricity from the plant.
Previous news reports said that Bangladesh was expecting to get electricity from the 1600 MW coal-fired power plant from November this year after about a year of delay.
The import of the electricity was primarily scheduled to begin in January this year.
But the slow progress in both power plant construction and transmission line installation forced the authorities in Bangladesh and India to revise the commercial operation date (COD) and set a new schedule for August this year, UNB reported in February.
Currently, Bangladesh imports a total of 1160 MW of power from India, of which 1000 MW is imported from West Bengal and 160 MW from Tripura.
As per the deadline set in the agreement, official sources said the Adani Group’s both the units were supposed to start commercial operation in 2020. But the Covid-19 situation forced the rescheduling of the deadline.
After missing the deadline of construction, the Adani Group was trying to start the operation of its 800 MW first unit on 16 December in 2021, as part of the commemoration of Bangladesh’s Victory Day, said an official of the Indian conglomerate preferring anonymity.
“But the initiative was not successful because of the failure on both the sides—Adani Group and BPDB”, said the official in February.
Official data shows the country's total generation capacity is more than 25,000 MW, 40% of which is surplus capacity.
Despite this fact, the government is keen to install new power plants and even import electricity.