BD asks Tripura to reduce power tariff

Shahnaj Begum:  Bangladesh has requested the Tripura government to reduce tariff of power it is now importing from the Northern Indian State.
“Bangladesh Power Development Board (PDB) has sent a request letter to Tripura State Electricity Corporation to reduce the tariff of electricity. We are expecting that the tariff would be comparatively lower from the existing one,” Power Cell DG Mohammad Hossain told the Daily Observer on Sunday.
“We are paying Tk Tk7.78 KWH (kilowatt hours) per unit from Tripura. Under
    no-electricity no-pay method,” an official said.
According to him, a negotiation meeting is set to be held last week of this month in this regard.
The government has been importing around 1160MW (after transmission loss it is around 1000MW) electricity from India since October 5, 2013 through Bharamara grid line.
Of it 250MW of power comes from Indian state-owned NVVN’s unallocated quota and another 250MW comes through Indian open market through PTC with per unit Tk6.08 KWH on average tariff.
The Power Division is set to extend the tenure of 160MW electricity import from Tripura for another five years as the current power purchase agreement (PPA) will expire in March 16, 2021, said a source in the Power Division.
The BPDB signed the power purchase agreement with Indian NTPC NVVN on March 15, 2016 to import 100MW of electricity from Tripura. Later it signed a supplementary agreement of Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) to import another 60MW from there.
 “We are paying a high price from the gas-fired Palatan Power Plant; we are paying Tk1.5 crore per month as transmission charge to import the electricity and so we observed that the tariff should be reviewed,” a senior official of the Power Division told this correspondent.
The Indian state-owned NTPC Vidut Vyaper Nigam Ltd (NVVN) already made a proposal to extend the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) in December 2020.
Bangladesh is utilizing 24-km Indian transmission line and 31-km Bangladesh Power Grid line to import the electricity.
Bangladesh is thinking of extending the PPA as the Tripura government has built the dedicated transmission line for power export to Bangladesh. So either Bangladesh will pay for the investment cost or to continue the deal for the next five years.
BPDB Chairman Md Belayet Hossain earlier said the BPDB would extend the agreement to keep the transmission line operative.
Currently, Bangladesh has a capacity of producing 21,239MW electricity against the demand for only 9,141MW per day.
A CPD study said around 57 percent of the power generation capacity remains unused, for which the Power Development Board is counting losses in terms of capacity charges.
In the last six years, the BPDP has spent Tk16, 980 crore on electricity from India. Tripura-Power, Power division said