B'desh wanted more electricity from Tripura as it supplies 50-80 MW daily

Energy-starved Bangladesh wanted at least 250 MW of electricity from Tripura, which is currently supplying 50 to 80 MW electricity to the neighbouring country, top officials said here on Tuesday.

Tripura State Electricity Corporation Limited (TSECL) Managing Director Biswajit Basu said that the Bangladesh government has been requesting to supply at least 250 MW of electricity to their country as they have a huge shortage of power to meet the growing demand of consumers.

“Currently we are supplying 50 to 80 MW of electricity to Bangladesh every day. Discussions are going on. But to increase the supply of electricity, Central government’s permission and clearances are vital, requiring signing of an agreement and to fulfil other formalities,” Basu told IANS.

He said that the Bangladesh government almost regularly makes their payments to TSECL for the supply of electricity.

“Bangladesh is our good neighbour. Regularly we are talking about the supply of power from our power plant to their country,” the state-owned corporation MD said.

The top TSECL engineer said that though the outstanding payment of Bangladesh is not much, the corporation is to get Rs 500 crore from the consumers of Tripura.

Tripura, an electricity surplus state, had started supplying 100 MW of power to Bangladesh from the state-owned ONGC Tripura Power Company (OTPC) power plant in March 2016.

The power supply sometimes increased to 160 MW.

After the first agreement in 2016, the TSECL subsequently renewed the agreement twice to continue the supply of electricity to Bangladesh.

Another Tripura Power Department official said that in 2020 the TSECL had supplied 40 MW of electricity to Nepal but the supply has been discontinued as Nepal did not approach the Indian authorities afresh.

The NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam (NVVN) is the nodal agency to supply power to Bangladesh from the Tripura power project, the official said.

He said that electricity is being supplied to Bangladesh and most of the northeastern states from the 726 MW generation capacity OTPC gas-based power plant in southern Tripura's Palatana, 65 km south of Agartala.

The OTPC, a joint venture company of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Ltd, IDFC Bank and the Tripura government, set up the 726-MW project at Palatana in June 2013.

According to officials, the OTPC's combined cycle power plant, which is the largest gas-based power plant in the northeast, is meeting around 35 per cent of the power requirement of seven northeastern states, excluding Sikkim.

The Rs 10,000 crore Palatana power plant is a unique example of the cooperation between New Delhi and Dhaka, which ensured the passage of heavy project equipment and turbines to Palatana in southern Tripura through Bangladesh territory.

Besides the Palatana power plants, Tripura has several other gas-based thermal power projects owned by the state government and North Eastern Electric Power Corporation (NEEPCO), a Central government PSU.