Tripura power coming in at Tk 6.44/unit

Bangladesh will buy 100 megawatts of electricity from India's Tripura for a reasonable rate of Tk 6.44 per kilowatt-hour, officials said.

The rate was announced at a press briefing at Sonargaon Hotel in the capital yesterday following a meeting between Nasrul Hamid, state minister for power of Bangladesh, and Manik Dey, minister for power of the Indian state of Tripura.

The meeting fixed the electricity tariff at $0.08 per unit. The price stands at Tk 6.44 and Indian 5.5 rupees per unit, said an official of the power ministry.

Sources said the supply of electricity from Tripura's Palatana Power Plant might start next month.

The electricity supply was supposed to begin in December last year, and the infrastructure for transmitting the electricity was already in place. But it did not happen, as India was asking Tk 10 per unit.

As a result, the ministry, without signing any power purchase agreement with Tripura, sent the proposal to the Prime Minister's Office.

The new tariff was fixed following discussions between the two governments, sources said.

Once the electricity supply starts, the amount of power being imported from India would be 570MW.

India's state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation commissioned its biggest ever commercial power project at Palatana in southern Tripura. The first unit of the 726MW plant began power generation in December 2013.

The Palatana project is a hallmark of cooperation between India and Bangladesh, which ensured the smooth passage of heavy project equipment and turbines to Palatana through Bangladesh territory from Haldia port in West Bengal.

Bangladesh allowed free transportation of the equipment through waterways up to Ashuganj and from there to Agartala by road.