West Bengal, once India’s industrial powerhouse and now hardly attracting any industry, has surplus power which it is seeking to export to Bangladesh.
Even in peak summer months when power consumption rises sharply, West Bengal has a surplus of around 750 MW.
“If we fail to attract heavy industry to West Bengal, we should at least make money by selling our surplus power. Atleast until such time when industries start to come to Bengal,” said a senior West Bengal official.
He said West Bengal has already put in a ‘strong and immediate request’ to India’s government-owned power companies who are entrusted to deal with buying or selling of electricity from foreign sources.
India buys a lot of power from Bhutan and has belatedly committed to sell at least 500MW to Bangladesh and an undisclosed amount to Myanmar.
Such deals must go through the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and Power Trading Corporation (PTC).
“We have put in our request and we are told this should happen soon,” the official said.
But he was not willing to be named on grounds he is not explicitly authorised to speak to the media.
The proposed export of power will involve the Power Grid Corporation (PGC) of India which has to connect the grids of India and Bangladesh.
PGC officials say they are constructing 400KV sub-station in Murshidabad that will link up to Bheramara in Bangladesh where the power grids of the two countries will be synchronised to facilitate the transfer.
“Work on it should be finished by 2013,” one PGC official said.
Once that happens, power from West Bengal can be sold to Bangladesh.
“But even if we sell 500MW to Bangladesh, we will have a surplus of 250MW,” the West Bengal official said.
But he did not say whether West Bengal will seek Delhi’s clearence for augmenting the sale of power to Bangladesh beyond the 500MW promised during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Dhaka last year.
At the moment, most power plants in West Bengal are not operating to full capacity because of lack of demand.
No worthwhile new industrial investment has flown into West Bengal since Mamata Banerji took over as chief minister.
The agitation she led at Singur against Tata’s proposed Nano car factory not only drove the Tatas away from West Bengal but also discouraged other investors from India and abroad.
The Singur plot lies unused, locked in a court battle between the state government and the Tatas, as the Nano factory has shifted to Gujarat and doing fine.
Many of the farmers whose lands were accquired – Banerji alleges by force – await compensation.
Despite many roadshows that her government has done to attract investments, no major Indian business house or any from outside have turned up to put their money in West Bengal.
They want Banerji to spell out an industry-friendly land policy and withdraw her opposition to foreign direct investment in retail.
Source: Bd news24
