Anisul Islam Noor :
The government is likely to allow an Indian firm to set up a 225 MW dual-fuel power plant in Bhola under an unsolicited deal, official sources said.
They said, the Indian firm Shapoorji Pallonji Infrastructure Capital Company Ltd earlier proposed to move its existing power project at Udamsingnagar district under Uttarakhand Pradesh in India to Bhola.
“The government is considering the proposal of Indian firm positively as there is availability of gas to run such power plant”, a senior Power Division official told The New Nation on Sunday. He said, a three-member technical team of Power Division recently visited power plant of the Indian company said that it could be installed here, but the net generation capacity would be 200MW.
“The technical team has suggested the authorities to involve the equipment producer during the process of removing, dismantling, packaging and reinstalling the plant from India to Bangladesh,” he added.
Installed on a 13-acre site, the plant will require 35mmcfd of gas to operate.
The official informed that a 34.5MW rental gas-fired power plant is already operating in Bhola while another 225MW public-owned plant started producing electricity recently.
“We have a plan to set up another unit in public sector using the gas resource. But it would not be possible if the Indian power plant is allowed here,” he noted.
Earlier in June this year, the Power Division decided to allow the Indian company to install the power plant if it agrees not to seek liquidated demurrage (LD) in case of shortfall of gas supply to the proposed plant.
Earlier in 2011, the government allowed Indian firm LANCO to set up a gas-fired power plant in Bhola. But the firm later scrapped the deal as the as it failed to get the assurance of gas supply for 15 years to the proposed plant.
