India's Adani Group as per agreement will take away Tk 1,26,581 crore from Bangladesh in the name of capacity charge. Bangladesh is already paying Tk 20,000 crore to several power companies in the country as capacity charge.
Not only that, Bangladesh has to pay huge amounts of US dollars for importing coal from Australia and Indonesia. It will take 45 percent higher price than usual.
Adani Power Limited has made this horrific discriminatory agreement with Bangladesh by concealing the information. While this project was supposed to reduce Bangladesh's expenditure for capacity charges and coal import, the reality here is completely different.
According to Information, Bangladesh has to pay capacity charges even if it disagrees to buy electricity from Adani Power Limited. Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) will have to pay $39.43 million per month as capacity charge for Adani's plant. In this way, Bangladesh will have to pay $473.16 million capacity charge annually, and it will stand about 11.83 billion dollars or Tk 1,26,581 crore (1 dollar = 106.95 taka) in 25 years.
The BPDB will have to pay 16 per cent more for capacity charges and 45 per cent more for fuel prices than that of other coal-fired power plants in the country.
Bangladesh has to pay 0.17 cents for per unit electricity to Adani. The price of electricity that is currently Bangladesh importing from India is 0.62 cents per unit. As a result, Bangladesh will have to pay USD 170 for every megawatt of electricity if the Adani power plant reaches its full capacity.
Energy experts said there is doubt whether there is any other precedent in the world like the Godda project.
A report titled 'Is Bangladesh's Electricity Contract with Adani's Legally Void' was published on a website named 'Adani Watch' from Australia on February 9. According to the report, Bangladesh will have to buy electricity from Godda at almost three times higher prices. Bangladesh has already realized this. For this reason, the BPDB wants to enter into a new agreement with Adani. Bangladesh has to buy electricity from Adani at a much higher price than the electricity produced by other companies or countries in India.
The Adani Watch report also mentioned that the coal from Australia is to be sourced from Adani's own mines for the Godda project. But Adani Power on October 10 last year invited tenders for the project to supply 5.9 million tons of coal over 25 years; which is suspicious.
All in all, energy experts say that Bangladesh's electricity deal with Adani Group is discriminatory and fraudulent. They say that Adani Group has cheated Bangladesh through this deal. They resorted to rigging in this agreement.
Energy expert and Energy Advisor to Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB) Professor Shamsul Alam said, "Considering legal aspects, we can declare Adani as an ineligible contractor. Through this, we can cancel their contract and say that we will not take electricity from them. Because we can buy coal and generate electricity ourselves for half the money that we will buy electricity from Adani."
"In the public interest, this agreement should be canceled and electricity should be generated in other coal-based power plants in the country instead of buying electricity from Adani. If the government makes concessions in this regard, it must be understood that an active and opportunistic circle within the government had an active role in the making of this agreement", he said.
The vested quarter is protecting Adani's interests instead of the country's side. Those should be identified and be convicted as fuel criminals, otherwise, the interests of the country will not be protected, Shamsul Alam added.
Bangladesh currently imports 1,160MW of electricity from India while under the 2017 agreement, Dhaka is supposed to buy 1,600 MW electricity from Adani Power Ltd for 25 years and start getting electricity from March this year.
BDST: 2006 HRS, FEB 15, 2023
MSK/SMS
