Bangladesh will have to wait at least three months to get 250MW of electricity from India as New Delhi might miss the July 2013 deadline because of the delay in the setting up of transmission lines.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, however, said on Saturday that the national grid would get 250MW power imported from India very soon.
“Electricity cannot be received from India before mid-October as it will take more than two months to complete the entire procedure,” said Chowdhury Alamgir Hossain, acting managing director of the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB).
“We completed all necessary work, including setting up of the transmission line and construction of a sub-station on Bangladesh side by June,” he told the Dhaka Tribune Sunday.
“Land development work in India has been completed while 95% of towers have been set up and a 70km transmission line has been constructed. It is expected that the rest of the work will be completed by September,” he said.
“Two poles could not be set up in Murshidabad of West Bengal because of political instability there,” Alamgir said, adding: “Bangladesh has requested India to complete the transmission line as early as possible.”
He said once the construction of infrastructure is completed, test transmission will have to be conducted for a month before India can supply electricity to Bangladesh.
Kazi Ishtiak Hasan, project director of the Grid Interconnection between Bangladesh (Bheramara) and India (Baharampur), said: “The construction work of 27km 400KV transmission line and the HVDC [high voltage direct current] sub-station has been completed.
“A total of 400KV DC electricity would be provided to Bheramara of Bangladesh from Baharampur of India. The electricity would be added to the national grid through sub-stations at Ishwardi and Khulna.”
The price of 1 kilowatt of electricity from India is expected to be Tk4 although the Indian authorities have yet to fix the wheeling charge. The PGCB will charge the Bangladesh Power Development Board about Tk0.23 per unit.
Bangladesh undertook the project to import electricity from India to reduce the nagging power crisis in the country. Dhaka and New Delhi signed a memorandum of understanding in this regard in January 2010 during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to India. Later, India decided to export 250MW power to Bangladesh.
Bangladesh has a demand for total 7,500MW of electricity per day while it produces average 6,600MW.
