Bangladesh will take a big step towards becoming a nuclear power-generating country today.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will inaugurate the Rooppur nuclear power plant by placing the first concrete block.

The ceremony will be attended by Director General of ROSATOM Alexey Likhachev, minister of science and technology Bangladesh Yafes Osman and President of JSC EC ASE Valery Limarenko.

The general contractor for constructing Rooppur NPP is JSC Atomstroyexport, the engineering division of ROSATOM. In 2015-16, it carried out the preliminary work on the construction site and prepared working documentation and validation materials for the necessary licences. 

On November 4, 2017, the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Regulatory Authority (BAERA) issued a licence for the design and construction of the power plant.

“Although there are huge limitations to setting the first nuclear power plant in Bangladesh, we already have the ability to set up the mega plant in the country guided by the IAEA,” Dr Shawkat Akbar, project director of Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant, told The Daily Star.

He added that they hope to generate electricity from the plant from 2023 as a test case and more 2,400 megawatt electricity would be added to the national grid within 2025 from this project.

The commissioning of unit 1 of Rooppur NPP is scheduled for the year 2023 while the second unit is scheduled for 2024.

Giving priority to the most safe and secure measures, the government will set up the country's first nuclear plant in Bangladesh, Yafes Osman, said, adding that the plant brings pride for the nation.  It will meet the country's electricity demand and create around 12,000 new jobs, with 4,500 of those being for Russian specialists.

Rooppur NPP, with two VVER-1200 reactors and a total capacity of 2,400 MW, is being constructed using Russian design, some 160 km away from Dhaka, in accordance with the general contract. 

The design, currently used for Novovoronezh NPP Phase II, a Russian nuclear power plant, has been selected for Rooppur NPP.

The Rooppur NPP project is set within the framework of an in-depth concept defense system which guarantees environmental protection, multi-layer protection and mitigation of man-made accidents and human factor consequences.