Two months into inauguration, the electricity import from India to Kushtia’s Bheramara substation has exceeded 400 megawatt.
At 9:57am on Tuesday, the import began with 419MW, and at the end of the day it stood at 422MW, the highest ever after the inauguration on October 5.
The transmission was inaugurated with the import of 175MW. The import target was set to reach 500MW daily.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh inaugurated commercial import of power from India.
“Hopefully, the import will touch 500MW gradually,” Chowdhury Alamgir Hossain, acting managing director of Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB) told the Dhaka Tribune on Tuesday.
He added: “Presently, we are examining over load and heat run capacity of the substation and transmission line.
After completion, we will be able to transmit 500 megawatt.”
Dhaka and New Delhi signed a memorandum of understanding to import 500MW of electricity in January 2010 during the premier’s visit to India.
India’s state-owned National Thermal Power Company (NTPC) and Power Trading Corporation Ltd (PTC) will supply 250MW each.
On the other hand, Power Development Board (PDB) has sought withdrawal of import duty, value added tax (VAT), advanced income tax (AIT) and other duties on import of 250MW of electricity from PTC.
PDB secretary Md Azizul Islam in a letter to Power Division secretary Monowar Islam recently sought the government’s support for open market import of electricity.
On July 28, the cabinet committee on public purchase approved the import of 250MW electricity from India’s open market.
The PTC will supply electricity for three years from power plants in West Bengal and the eastern region at a rate of Tk6.34 with Tk0.31 wheeling charge.
The cost of per unit electricity from NTPC is Tk4 with a wheeling charge of Tk0.80. The PGCB will charge the PDB Tk0.23 per unit.
National Board of Revenue has imposed 5% import duty, 15% VAT and 5% AIT on import of 250MW power, said an official source.
The transmission line for Indian power import was scheduled to be set up by December last year at the cost of Tk10.79bn.
But the project cost later soared to Tk15.79bn.
The project included construction of 27km transmission line and two substations and acquisition and development of 113 acres of land.
