The import of 100 megawatt electricity from Tripura received a boost yesterday after officials of Bangladesh and India finalised the inter-country transmission line.
The two countries decided that an inter-connection line would be drawn from Suryamaninagar power sub-station in Agartala to Comilla in Bangladesh. The electricity will be transported from the 726MW thermal power project at Palatana in Gomati district of the northeastern Indian state.
The decision was taken at a meeting of technical experts from India and Bangladesh in Agartala, the capital of Tripura, according to the Press Trust of India.
Chowdhury Alamgir Hossain, director of Power Grid Company of Bangladesh, who led the Bangladesh delegation, said from Suryamaninagar substation, the line would be drawn by the Indian government up to Konaban, the crossing point to Bangladesh, covering a distance of about 24km.
From Konaban, the line would enter Bangladesh territory and would be drawn by the Bangladesh government up to Comilla grid covering a distance of about 27km which would cost about Tk 135 crore.
MK Chowdhury, a director of Tripura State Electrical Corporation Ltd (TSECL), said Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd would draw the line on the Indian side and the cost is yet to be calculated.
The newly constructed Suryamaninagar sub-station in West Tripura district was erected with installed capacity for international power trading, said SK Roy, chairman and managing director of TSECL.
New Delhi on Dhaka’s request has agreed to sell 100MW power from the state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd’s gas-based Palatana power project.
Bangladesh had allowed to use its port and roadway to transport cargos and turbines for the project.
Power Grid Corporation of India will construct the transmission lines and likely to bear the cost of the same, said the PTI report.
Bangladesh has been importing about 470MW of electricity from India since October 2013 through a transmission line that runs from Baharampur in the Indian state of West Bengal to the southwestern Bangladesh town of Bheramara.
Source: The Daily Star