Ghorashal third power plant gets ECNEC nod

The government approved the cost-intensive Ghorashal-3 power plant upgradation project Tuesday.
Presided over by the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) approved the project.
The Planning Commission (PC) had earlier expressed its reluctance to process the project when it was sent by the Power Division.
The ECNEC also approved four other fresh projects and revised another two at an aggregate cost of Tk 9.92 billion at its meeting Tuesday, planning minister AHM Mustafa Kamal told journalists after the meeting.
Earlier, influential quarters were putting pressure on the Planning Commission (PC) to proceed with the project for approval by the ECNEC, officials said.
They said the Power Development Board (PDB) is taking costly buyers' credit to upgrade the Ghorashal-3 power unit without exploring the possibility of securing soft loans from the foreign development partners.
The PC was reluctant to approve the project due to lack of proper recasting of the project proposal as was recommended by the Project Evaluation Committee (PEC) of the PC in its meeting earlier.
In the last quarter of 2014, the PC had sent back the power generation project due to its dependence on expensive buyers' credit.
The PC official said the Power Division had again sent the project a couple of months ago and put pressure on us to approve it quickly although the DPP was imperfect.
Under a Tk 25.19 billion (US$324.03 million) "Re-powering of the Ghorashal 3rd unit project", the state-owned PDB would rehabilitate the existing 210-megawatt (MW) power unit-3 to a combined cycle one and set up a new 260MW gas turbine power unit.
The ECNEC approved four other projects including Building of upazila and union land offices at Tk 5.37 billion, Setting up of passport personalisation building project at Tk 288.9 million, the 33/11kv substation installation at Sayedabad water treatment plant project at Tk 353.4 million, and Improvement of the sporting facilities of the BKSP project at Tk 418.4 million.
The ECNEC revised two projects including Construction of 14-storied building of Board of Investment at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar in Dhaka at a cost of Tk 1.23 billion and Expansion of the Oxygen crossing-Hathazari road on the Chittagong-Rangamati highways at a cost of Tk 2.26 billion.
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