One of the power generation units of the Barapukuria 525MW Coal Fired Power Plant in Parbatipur upazila of Dinajpur was shut down this afternoon, after operating for nine days.

“We shut it down at 3:05pm today,” Abdul Hakim Sakar, chief engineer of the plant, told our correspondent.

There are three units of the plant, operated by Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB), which are jointly able to generate 525MW power.

Two units are capable of generating 250MW power together while another unit can generate 275MW power.

The power plant which had been supplying around 380MW power to the national grid on an average was shut down on July 22 for lack of coal soon after the disappearance of around 1.45 lakh tonnes of coal from the stockyard of Barapukuria Coal Mining Company Limited (BCMCL) which was detected on July 16.

The market price of the missing coal is around Tk 230 crore.

As the shutdown increased public suffering in eight northern districts of Rangpur and Dinajpur regions, BPDB decided to restart one of its units for five days from August 20 to lessen public suffering.

BPDB got supply of 5,000 tonnes of coal from BCMCL in last one month which was used for operating the plant for nine days.

The plant will be restarted again once BPDB gets supply of coal, Hakim said.

Meanwhile, it is still uncertain when coal production from BCMCL will resume as underground development work is still going on.

Coal production of BCMCL was suspended on June 16, said the officials.

Saiful Islam, general manager (mine operation) of BCMCL, claimed that coal production may resume from September 15.

However, the miners who are involved with the task said production may be delayed for 10 more days.

Around 5,200 tonnes of coal are required to keep the three units in operation, but BPDB never got the required supply from BCMCL before.