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Govt offers tariff plan for Indian electricity

Reiaul Karim Byron and Md Fazlur Rahman
Bangladesh could pay up to Tk 5.5 for a unit of electricity to be imported from India — the rate being much higher than what it pays to the local bulk producers, but lower than the rental power plants.
The Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) will pay between Tk 4.80 and Tk 4.91 plus transmission charges and losses for a unit of electricity. The country expects to start importing from India by December 2012.
The power division will place a draft of the power purchase agreement (PPA) to this effect at the meeting today of the cabinet committee on economic affairs for approval.
Although the PPA did not specifically mention the tariff rate, it said how the Indian power producers would charge Bangladesh.
The Indian authorities have indicated that the tariff could be between 2.88 and 2.94 Indian rupees plus transmission charges and transmission losses.
The transmission charges and transmission losses will vary from time to time, according to the proposal of the power division.
Power division officials said the tariff is higher than the rate PDB pays to buy electricity in bulk, but lower than the tariff charged by the quick rental power plants.
PDB buys electricity in bulk at Tk 2.50 a unit although the price will be high if system loss is taken into consideration.
The government buys power between
Tk 7 and Tk 15 a unit from the quick rental power plants.
In January 2010, Bangladesh signed a memorandum of understanding with India to import electricity as part of its move to meet the growing energy needs of the country.
Bangladesh currently faces an electricity deficit of around 800 MW on an average, against a capacity of 5.000MW. On Monday, electricity generation hit 4,936 MW, the highest in the country's history.
Under the deal, Bangladesh will buy 250 MW of electricity from an unallocated quota of the Indian government and another 250 MW from the Indian open market.
To this effect, PDB and NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam Ltd have prepared a draft power purchase agreement.
The draft agreement also said work to set up a 400 KV transmission line and another 400 KV HVDC grid substation between Bheramara, Bangladesh and Bohorompur in India has started in order to bring electricity from India.
But Asian Development Bank, the funding agency, is not disbursing any money as the PPA has not been signed. This is disrupting the project's progress, according to the power division proposal. As a result, the import of electricity from India could be delayed, it said.
The agreement also did not name the plant that will supply power to Bangladesh, although the Joint Steering Group in February 2010 said electricity will be supplied from the central generating stations located in eastern India.