Anisul Islam Noor :
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Indian Premier Narendra Modi will jointly inaugurate the commercial 100MW power transmission from Tripura to Comilla through a video conference today (Tuesday).
Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) had earlier signed a five-year contract with NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam Limited (NVVN) to import 100MW power from India’s north-eastern state of Tripura.
PDB will pay Tk 6.43 to NVVN for each unit or kilowatt-hour electricity which would be supplied from a 726MW gas-fired power plant in southern Tripura which was constructed with assistance from Bangladesh. The contract would be renewed after five years, said PDB sources.
It would cost PDB Tk 6.7 per unit as the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh would charge Tk 0.27 for transmitting each unit of electricity, a PDB official said.
On the same day, Bangladesh will also start exporting 10gbps of bandwidth to Tripura, said Monwar Hossain, Managing Director of Bangladesh Submarine Cables Company Limited (BSCCL).
BSCCL has already set up necessary infrastructure at Agartala in India for exporting the bandwidth. The BSCCL will earn $100,000 per month from the bandwidth export.
“Tripura government is set to supply 100MW electricity to Bangladesh from under no-electricity, no-payment method. We have already fixed the price with the Tripura government at Tk 6.43 per unit,” Director General of Power Cell Mohammad Hossain told reporters.
Bangladesh is now importing 250 MW of electricity from Indian public-sector plants at Tk 3.56 per unit, and another 250MW from Indian private power plants at Tk 4.36 per unit.
The government has already installed a 54 km transmission line between Comilla and Tripura to transmit the electricity from Tripura.
In the past one year, Bangladesh and India installed 67 km grid line for the transmission of 100MW electricity to directly feed the southern part of Comilla, which includes the district’s load centre – Comilla south sadar, Jangalia and BSCIC area.
Of the 67 km grid line, PGCB has installed a total of 47 km line spending about Tk 170 crore. Of the 47 km grid, 28 km is 400 kV and 19 km is 132 kV line.
Bangladesh in 2011, allowed India transportation of the turbines, generators and other heavy equipment without any levy through its territory, from West Bengal’s Haldia port to the site of the 726MW power plant at Palatana in southern Tripura.
Earlier, the BSCCL agreed to compensate the Indian authority for any downtime to ensure at least 99.97 per cent of the total bandwidth transmission.
Bangladesh will add 1,300gbps bandwidth in 2016 once the BSCCL starts subscribing to the SEA-ME-WE-5 cable.
Meanwhile, the SEA-ME-WE-4 cable has already spent 10 years of its 20-year service period. It will expire in 2025.
