Bangladesh's power body owes $450.5 M to banks

Bangladesh's Power Development Board has stopped purchasing electricity from the quick rental power plants due to financial crisis.

This resulted in the worsening power crisis in the country.

As of March this year, PDB'soutstanding loan reached Tk 3686.05 crore or US$450.5 million payable to four state-owned commercialbanks-- Sonali, Janata, Agrani and Rupali, according to Bangladesh Bank.

Of the total amount, it borrowedTk 2484.99 crore from Sonali Bank, Tk 0.66 crore from Janata Bank, Tk 195.73crore from Agrani Bank and Tk 1004.67 crore from Rupali Bank.

PDB sources said a total of 23 oil-fired power plants having a total generation capacity of 1,397 megawatts remained suspended due to the financial crisis of PDB.

Earlier, the government has taken a policy to set up rental and quick rental power plants to seeking a quick fix of the ongoing energy crisis.

"PDB needs Tk 400 millionper day to buy diesel and furnace oil from the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation to feed the fuel-fired power plants. Moreover, it has to spend asubstantial amount of money per day to purchase electricity from the powerplants," a senior PDB official said.

He added that PDB is nowstruggling to function smoothly owing to a huge debt burden mostly to the SCBs, and our present financial position does not permit purchasing of electricityfrom the rental power plants.