Bangladesh, India fail to finalize coal-fired joint venture power plant

Bangladesh and India have failed to reach an agreement to form a joint venture company tomanage a USD 1.5 billion coal-fired power plant in Khulna.

India's NTPC wants to manage the rehabilitation and maintenance cost of the proposed power plant by increasing power tariff, while Bangladesh's PDB, suggests using the depreciation fund for this purpose.
“Why would we increase the tariff when there is a specific fund for this purpose?” said a senior PDB official.

The two countries' technical teams are still trying to narrow the gap, so as to reach a conclusion.

"However, we are hopeful of reaching an agreement, and it's just a matter of time,” said ASM Alamgir Kabir, chairman of the Power Development Board.

“It's a huge project. So, we remain very conscious, and are scrutinising the whole thing time and again,” Alamgir said.

The PDB chairman led a five-member Bangladeshi team that took part in the talks in Delhi. It returned home on Saturday.

To settle undecided issues regarding the Bangladesh-India joint venture coal-fired power plant in Bangladesh, the government had sent an apex technical team to India.

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