Bangladesh owes Rs 100 crore to Tripura over receiving 110-120 MW electricity daily

Agartala, May 22 (IANS) The Tripura State Electricity Corporation Limited (TSECL) is to get over Rs 100 crore as outstanding payment for supplying electricity to Bangladesh, top officials said on Wednesday.

TSECL Managing Director Debasish Sarkar said that over Rs 100 crore was to be received for supplying electricity to Bangladesh pending for over three months though the neighbouring country had to clear the payment within 35 days.

He said that currently, the TSECL supplies 110 MW to 120 MW of electricity daily to Bangladesh, which is also getting more electricity from India through the West Bengal side.

"The Union Power Ministry has requested the Bangladesh government to clear the outstanding payments at the earliest. I have personally visited Dhaka and held meetings with the concerned Bangladesh government officials and requested them to make the payment, pending for more than three months," Sarkar told IANS.

Tripura had started supplying 100 MW power to Bangladesh from the state-owned ONGC Tripura Power Company (OTPC) power plant in March 2016.

The power supply sometimes increased to 160 MW.

"After the first agreement in 2016, we subsequently renewed the agreement twice to continue the supply of electricity to Bangladesh," the TSECL MD said.

Another Tripura Power Department official said that in 2020 the TSECL had supplied 40 MW of electricity to Nepal but the supply has been discontinued as Nepal did not approach the Indian authorities afresh.

The NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam (NVVN) is the nodal agency to supply power to Bangladesh from the Tripura power project, the official said.

He said that electricity is being supplied to Bangladesh and most of the northeastern states from the 726 MW generation capacity OTPC gas-based power plant in southern Tripura's Palatana, 65 km south of Agartala.

The OTPC, a joint venture company of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Ltd, IDFC Bank and the Tripura government, set up the 726-MW project at Palatana in June 2013.

According to officials, the OTPC's combined cycle power plant, which is the largest gas-based power plant in the northeast, is meeting around 35 per cent of the power requirement of seven northeastern states, excluding Sikkim.

The Rs 10,000 crore Palatana power plant is a unique example of the cooperation between New Delhi and Dhaka, which ensured the passage of heavy project equipment and turbines to Palatana in southern Tripura through Bangladesh territory.

(Sujit Chakraborty can be contacted at sujit.c@ians.in)

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