Power Div seeks direct offer from Indian state owned firms

Power Division has now sought direct offer from two state-owned Indian companies to import 250 MW of power from Indian open market after it failed to receive any positive response from the private sector. The two Indian companies from which direct offers were sought are Power Trading Corporation (PTC) India Ltd., and the NVVN, according to official sources, reports UNB. "We're expecting that the two companies are coming to Dhaka to submit their respective proposal on May 28 as per our given schedule," said a top official at the Power Division. PTC India is a power trading company owned jointly by more than seven state-owned Indian companies enlisted with different stock exchanges in India while NVVN is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Indian state-owned National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC). On behalf of the Power Ministry, the state-owned Bangladesh Power Development Board (PDB) invited the two companies to submit their respective offers on May 28. When contacted, joint secretary of Power Ministry Anwar Hossain admitted about the move claiming that the government sought proposals from the two Indian companies under a 'limited tender process'. "We hope that we would receive competitive tariff offer from the two companies who trade electricity in the Indian open market," he told the news agency. Earlier, the state-owned Power Development Board (PDB) had invited bids in July last year from Indian private power producers to import 250 MW of electricity in addition to the government's move to import 250 MW of power from India's state-owned NTPC under state-to-state deal. But despite repeated deferment of bid submission date, no Indian private power companies were found to be interested to submit bids for exporting power to Bangladesh. Following this disappointing situation, the PDB appointed a consultant and softened terms and conditions of the tender to attract Indian private firms to sell electricity to Bangladesh. Again this move also failed to yield any positive result as no Indian private player was found to be interested to deal with Bangladesh in power trading. Finally, only the two state-owned companies-PTC India and NVVN- showed their interest to export power to Bangladesh. Of them, NVVN has already entered into a deal with PDB to export 250 MW power from NTPC under the state-to-state agreement. Bangladesh is expecting the 250 MW of power from next month. Now if the NVVN gets the new contract to export another 250 MW from Indian open market, then its total export would increase to 500 MW. However, Power Division officials said the PTC seems to be much more interested to export 250 MW power from Indian open market to Bangladesh. Experts in the power sector said that the 250 MW power import from Indian open market might cost higher than the cost of the power coming under the Indian government's initiative. As per the government-to-government power import deal, the NTPC will supply electricity to PDB for next 25 years under a negotiated tariff of Tk 4.0 per unit plus Tk 0.80 wheeling charge.