MYMENSINGH. Oct 9: The installation of 60-megawatt barge-mounted power plant at Shambhuganj faced a major setback as a titanic vessel ferrying its turbine ran aground in the Jamuna near Bahadurabad. reports APB.

Officials said the gigantic foreign barge carrying the turbine-generator of the plant, a priority project for tackling the nagging power crisis in the country, has been stuck up on a shoal in the river since September 19.

“It may not be possible to salvage the barge before next monsoon." one official told APB, indicating that the setting up of the Tk 280 crore gas-fired power plant could be delayed by a year.

Some 70 per cent of the costs of the project are being financed by the Aslan Development Bank while the remainder by the government and five rural electrip cooperatives of the REB. The plant is located on a 30-acre plot by the river Old Brahmaputra.

The barge, sailing from

Mongla Port via Chandpur-Air-cha route, stuck up with sandbars near Bahadurabad Ghat in Jamalpur district, throwing the construction firms into worries.

Authorities are learnt to be mulling over alternative means of transporting the turbine from the stranded vessel. But sources feel that the huge machine. weighing some 2.500 tonnes, cannot oe brought to Mymensingh save on board a barge.

'This big generator cannot be transported by road for a lack of suitable transport," said an engineer at the project site.

Nor can it be carried by railway. because the bridges along the railtrack cannot take a load of over 100 tonnes. And there are more than 20 such bridges all along the route.

Meanwhile, the rail bridge near Bahadurabad has already collapsed. Prospect of river traffic has also reduced as the Old Brahmaputra and Jamuna are receding fast.

According to official sources, the turbine-generator

arrived at Mongla from France early June. A barge. built at Narayanganj High Speed Workshop. first attempted to ferry it from the port, but it lacked the capacity to bear it.

Later, another vessel was chartered from Singapore early September for shipping the generator. It was expected to call at the destination in ten days, but took 20 days to reach Bahadurabad Because it also got stuck in the Meghna near Chandpur.

Concerned circles said the water levels of the Jamuna and the Brahmaputra were above danger marks for 63 and 25 days respectively during the recent floods. The barge could ply the route during this period at ease.

The sources further observed that work on the project at Shambhuganj was also progressing at a snail's pace". More than 50 per cent work on the physical infrastructure is yet to be completed, they said.

"No work save the construction of only one out of a total of 16 towers of the grid line has

been completed so far." said one of them.

A number of Japanese and European companies are supervising the project works.

On completion of the project, it will be possible to generate another 180 megawatts of electricity through expansion of the plant’s capacity in phases to throw into the national grid through the Kewatkhali Grid Une, sources added.

Meanwhile, in a meeting on Monday, the Rural Power Company (RPC) pressured the contractors to hit upon alternative ways for enabling the barge to move.

Meeting sources said a study would be conducted in search of alternative means and its report be submitted by the 28th of this month.

RPC Managing Director Maksudul Karim told the agency that as per the contract, the contractors would have to pay his company US$ 40.000 a day in damages if they failed to reach the generator on time, by April 1999.