PC sends back cross-border grid proposal

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FHM Humayan Kabir
The planning commission (PC) has sent back a proposal on the planned Indo-Bangla cross-border electricity grid on the grounds of faulty project design and the lack of power supply guarantee by India, officials said Friday.
The commission said it would not "process" the proposal further unless the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB), the project implementing agency, is able to obtain the guarantee of uninterrupted electricity supply from the Indian side for at least 33 years.
But the head of PGCB said his agency is hopeful about bringing in power from India to Bangladesh in less than three years.
Severe power crisis, worsened by years of under-investment in power generation, has prompted Dhaka to take steps to import power from India.
Although 53 per cent of the country's population is not connected to the grid, Bangladesh can generate just 3800 megawatt of electricity, leaving a demand-supply mismatch that peaked 2000 megawatt last month.
The commission has also directed the PGCB to recast the project proposal, providing justification why it should build the back-to-back grid and seek 113 acres of land from the Bangladesh Railway and higher wheeling charge from the local power buyer.
Last month PGCB sent the development project proposal to the planning commission, seeking its scrutiny before it can be placed before the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC), the body responsible for okaying publicly financed projects.
"We need to make sure India agrees to provide electricity for 33 years. If that guarantee is there and the proposal is recast, we will consider the project," a senior planning commission official told the FE.
The PGCB, the state grid operator, said it would invest as much as Tk. 10 billion for the planned 400kv transmission line by 2012.
Ruhul Amin, managing director at the PGCB, said that once constructed, the cross-border grid would be utilised for electricity transmission between Bangladesh and India.
Initially, he added, Bangladesh will import 500-megawatt electricity from India.
"The PGCB hasn't carried out any feasibility study on the project," the planning commission official said, questioning how the company could take up such a big project without any study.
He said, "It (PGCB) has also sought 113 acres of land from the Bangladesh Railway for installing a high-voltage power substation."
"We have sought clarification from the company why it should require such a huge land for executing the cross-border transmission line," the official said requesting anonymity.
He said the commission is not convinced why the PGCB is going ahead with the idea of installing back-to-back grid in a move to export power to India.
"In the project proposal, the power grid company has also said that it will charge 10 per cent additional wheeling fee from the power importer in each of the implementation years. This will push up electricity prices in the country," the official said.
The PGCB's project document remains unclear about how it would address any issues, which can crop up during and after the implementation stage, he said.
"So we have asked the PGCB to clarify and incorporate the necessary issues into the project document and revise the proposal," the planning commission official said. "If those are not done, we can't forward it to the ECNEC."
PGCB officials said the state-run power transmitter in February invited tender for the construction of grid lines and a high-voltage substation within the Bangladesh border.
About 100 kilometres cross-border power grid would connect Bangladesh's western Bheramara under Kushtia district with India's eastern Baharampur area in the West Bengal state.
The Bangladesh's PGCB would install nearly 40km long grid from Bheramara to the Indian border point while the Indian side would build another 60km line from the border point to Baharampur.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has agreed to lend up to US$100 million for the project and the lending proposal is expected to be placed before its board sometime in August.
Following the acute power outages in Bangladesh, two neighbouring countries signed a deal for setting up the high voltage transmission line during a visit of the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasian to New Delhi in January this year.