Staff Reporter :
India’s north-eastern state Tripura has agreed to export another 100 megawatts of power to Bangladesh. This is in addition to the 100MW the state is already exporting to the neighboring country.
Tripura Power Minister Manik Dey informed reporters in Agartala on Saturday that Bangladesh government had recently requested India for extra 100MW power.
The Tripura government readily gave the consent when the request was forwarded to it, he said.
“We have informed the union government that we are willing to export another 100MW power to neighboring Bangladesh from the NEEPCO’s power station at Monarchak, which will start commercial production very soon. “This will be in addition to the 100MW that we are exporting to Bangladesh from the Palatana power station,” Deb said. The 100MW power station on bordering Monarchak is very close to Comilla district of Bangladesh. It has completed its trial generation and will start commercial production soon after the flow of gas becomes stable. The supply of power from Tripura is in accordance with the decision of the 7th Joint Steering Committee/Joint Working Group on Power held in Dhaka in 2014 to explore the possibility of supply of 100MW power from Tripura. Bangladesh allowed the transport of over-dimensional cargo through its territory during the construction of the Palatana power plant in Tripura in 2011.
Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar immediately promised he would ensure supply of minimum 100MW power from Tripura’s share to Bangladesh following New Delhi’s approval.
Bangladesh and India’s power grids have earlier been connected with the supplying of 500MW power to Bangladesh through the Bahrampur-Bheramara transmission cable. The supply of another 500 megawatts through the same interconnection was also announced during Modi’s Dhaka visit last year. Bangladesh and Tripura maintain a special relationship as the north-eastern state of India had given millions of Bangladeshis shelter during 1971 Liberation War.
