Govt approves two rental power plants

FE Team | Published: October 03, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

FE Report
The government has approved installation of two rental power plants with a total capacity of 90-megawatt (MW) of electricity in Sylhet district.
The approval came at meeting of the committee of the advisers' council on public purchase Tuesday.
Youth Spinning Mills Limited will set up an 80MW power plant at Shahjibazar in Sylhet and a local company Desh Energy Limited and a US-based firm Cambridge Energy Waste Management Ltd will jointly set up a 10MW power plant at Kumargaon in Sylhet.
The PDB will purchase power from the rental power plants at a rate of Tk 2.26 and Tk 2.36 per kilowatt-hour respectively for 15 years.
Presided over by the Finance and Planning Adviser, Mirza Azizul Islam, the meeting of public purchase committee also approved procurement of vehicles, rice and Urea fertiliser.
Following the nagging power situation in the country, the BNP-led four-party government took steps to set up seven rental power plants as a short-term measure and completed tender process. But the interim government scrapped the tender process for the six plants because of alleged irregularities and took steps for a re-tender.
Only the 20MW rental power plant at Bogra was given a go-ahead for installation by the present government after a thorough investigation against alleged irregularities. The plant is now under installation.
Later, the caretaker administration took steps for setting up more rental power plants in the second phase with a combined capacity of 300MW.
The meeting gave a nod to the establishment ministry for procurement of 150 Pajero Jeeps (2350cc) for the Upazila Nirbahi Officers (UNOs) from the state-owned Progati Industries Ltd.
The Progoti Industries Ltd will assemble the Pajero jeeps and sell it to the establishment ministry at the rate of about Tk 2.6 million each, official sources said.
The sources said the government will procure the Pajeroes for the UNOs aiming at speeding up the administrative works at the local government level throughout the country.
Another proposal of the Ministry of Food and Disaster Management for procurement of 0.109 million tonnes of rice from the local suppliers in two lots was also endorsed by the purchase committee Tuesday.
The ministry will purchase the quantum rice at a rate between Tk 23,807 and Tk 24,500 per tonne from the local suppliers in order to augment the government's buffer stock.
Two other proposals of the industries ministry were also approved at the meeting under which the Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC) will procure a total of 50,000 tonnes (37,500+12,500) of Urea fertiliser from the international markets.
The purchase committee, however, rejected some other proposals of the industries ministry for procurement of 0.1 million tonnes of Urea from the international markets on the grounds of higher prices.