Govt looks for donors' funds to set up hydro-power plant in Myanmar

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FHM Humayan Kabir
The government is looking for funds for setting up hydro-power plant in Myanmar and the electricity to be produced there will be brought to the country to cope with the growing demand.
A three-member Bangladesh delegation, led by power secretary AKM Zafor Ullah Khan, is likely to visit Myanmar shortly to have bilateral talks with the Myanmar government on the hydro-electricity potentials in that country, official sources said.
Earlier, the government, in principle, decided to set up power plant in Myanmar and bring the electricity through a cross-border transmission line.
According to Power Division sources, the division had requested the Economic Relations Division (ERD) to seek fund from donors for the power generation project in Myanmar where a large investment is required.
A senior ERD official told the FE: "As per Power Division's request, we will send letters shortly to some multilateral and bilateral donors including World Bank, Asian Development Bank and Japan requesting their financial support for conducting feasibility study as well as to install the power plant in Myanmar."
According to sources, the Ministry of Electric Power of Myanmar has identified about 200 potential sites for generating 38,000 megawatt (MW) of electricity from the water resources of its hundreds of rivers.
Earlier, an expert team of Power Development Board (PDB) prepared an assessment report on the potentiality of the hydroelectricity in Myanmar.
It said that a detailed study to assess the potential of hydro-electricity in Myanmar should be done by sending an expert team from Dhaka.
The assessment report also noted that in Michuang and Lemro areas under the Rakhine state in Myanmar had a potentiality of 800 MW hydropower generation. And bringing of electricity will be viable as those areas are close to Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar.
"Besides, some five sites near Naga Hills in the state of Chin in Myanmar have a potentially of 2200MW power generation. But as these sites are far from Bangladesh boarder it will not be viable," the report quoted.
Meanwhile, Chinese news agency Xinhua quoting sources at the Myanmar Ministry of Electric Power on June 4 reported that depending on agreement of Bangladesh, a dam could be built in Rakhine state where many rivers run close to border with its neighbour.
If the move is agreed between the two countries, a feasibility study will be conducted on the Kaladan and Lemro rivers, the Sai Tin Creek and the Dalet Creek, which are all in the Rakhine state, the news agency in its report said.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh took a move to import electricity from Bhutan and India, but little progress had been made.
Energy Adviser Tapan Chowdhury recently in a discussion with donors in Dhaka said Bangladesh had virtually lost the hope of buying electricity form Bhutan as Dhaka's request to this effect was stuck in a procrastinating process of Thimpu and New Delhi.
He said most of the Bhutanese power plants have been set up with Indian investment and there is no surplus electricity.
"Besides, India itself suffers from power shortage, so we cannot expect to buy hydro-electricity from Bhutan at present," said the energy adviser.
Bangladesh, hard-hit by the electricity shortage for the last few years, has been looking for options to import electricity from neighbouring countries. Shortage of its demand for electricity is about 2000MW.
Bangladesh has a requirement of around 5000MW of power, but its production capacity staggers between 3000MW and 3300MW, depending on the condition of its decade-old power plants.