Bangla, India set to hold talks on electricity swap

Anisur Rahman
Dhaka, Feb 18 (PTI) India and Bangladesh are set to launch
two-day talks here on February 19 to work out technical
modalities for exchange of electricity in line with an MoU
inked during Premier Sheikh Hasina's New Delhi visit last
month, officials said here on Thursday.
"This will be the second meeting of the Joint Steering
Committee for Cooperation in the Power Sector which will focus
on grid inter-connection and cooperation between our PDB
(Power Development Board) and India's National Thermal Power
Cooperation (NTPC)," Bangladeshi Power Division spokesman
Afrazur Rahman said.
The Indian delegation headed by Power Secretary H S Brahma
would hold talks with Bangladesh officials led by his
counterpart Abul Kalam Azad to finalise technical details of
the power exchange, he said.
The two countries last month signed an MoU on the
sidelines of the meeting between Hasina and Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh, when New Delhi agreed to provide
250MW from its central grid in the initial stage.
Officials of the two countries earlier held two rounds of
meetings in Dhaka and New Delhi ahead of the signing of the
MoU and estimated that an investment of approximately Taka
1300 crore (Rs 870.6 crore) would be required for grid
inter-connection.
They said Taka 1062 crore (Rs 710 crore) would be required
for works in Bangladesh, while an investment of Taka 240 crore
(Rs 160.5 crore) would be spent in India.
Power Ministry officials said that under the deal,
state-run PDB could sell electricity to India when it would
have surplus electricity.
"We identified at least four points for proposed
inter-connection but the Iswardi-Behrampur and Asuganj-Tripura
are considered to be the most viable sites for the exchange
project," Azad earlier told PTI.
The Bangladeshi Power Secretary, however, said the deal
would require synchronisation of the transmission systems of
the two countries as Bangladeshi system is based on 232 KV AC
line while the Indian system is based on 210 KV AC line.
"We will need to transform the connecting points of the
two systems into high voltage DC line or (HVDC) as
back-to-back link of 250MW capacity," Azad said.
Bangladesh currently faces electricity deficit of around
1500 to 1800 MW on an average against the de-rated capacity of
4500 MW in 132 state-run and private units.
Officials said development of inter-connections of large
electric power systems between states of a big country or
between neighbouring countries is a worldwide practice as they
referred to several examples of such cooperation in Africa,
East Asia, Europe, the United States and Canada.
The proposed deal got a momentum as Bangladesh in
September last year agreed in principle to provide access to
Ashuganj river port to facilitate the transportation of the
Over Dimensional Consignments (ODC) or overland transport
facilities for the Palatana Power Project. PTI AR
AHM