Cabinet Committee on Public Purchase (CCPP) on Wednesday approved 5 proposals for extension of 5 rental power plants, having a capacity of 457 MW, for next two years.

As per the proposals, the government will pay a total of Tk 5,205.9 crore to purchase electricity from the plants during the contract period.   

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal, however, said these plants were given approval on a “No electricity, No payment” basis.

The proposal was approved while the country has a huge surplus capacity in the electricity generation.

As per the BPDB statistics, the current total installation capacity now stands at 25,514 MW while the supply is about 13,000 MW.

Of the approved plants, three belong to Summit Group, one belongs to Dutch-Bangla Group and one to Orion Group.

READ: Cabinet body okays extension of deals with 4 rental power plants

As per the approval the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) will pay Tk 459.98 crore to Summit Group for purchase of electricity from its 40 MW furnace oil–based plant of the Khulna Power Plant, Tk 1295.42 crore to its Khulna Power Company Unit-II Ltd’s 115 MW Goalpara plant, Tk 1157.52 crore to Summit Group’s Summit Narayanganj Power Limited’s 102 MW Madanganj plant.

The BPDB will pay Tk 1146.51 crore to Dutch Bangla Power & Associates Ltd’s 100 MW furnace oil-based Shiddhirgaj plant, Tk 1146.51 crore to Orion Power Meghnaghat Ltd’s Meghnaghat 100 MW plant as per the approval.  

Additional secretary of the Cabinet Division, Zillur Rahman Chowdhury while briefing reporters on the issue, said the government is purchasing electricity from the plants at Tk 16.40 per unit (each kilowatt hour) while under the new contract, it will purchase each unit of electricity at a reduced rate of Tk 17.529.

The committee approved two more proposals of the Power Division under which the BPDB will purchase service at Tk 92.42 crore from General Electric Global Services GmbH, Switzerland for installation of Gas turbine, gas turbine generator at 4th repowered combined cycle unit at Ghorasal Power Station.

Similarly, the BPDB will purchase service and scheduled maintenance at Tk 419.99 crore from Marubeni Power & Infrastructure Systems Corporation, Japan for installation of turbine, gas turbine generators at the 400 MW Bibiyana-III power plant.

The Cabinet Committee approved a proposal of the Petrobangla to import 33.60 lakh units (MMBtu) of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Vitol Asia Pte Ltd, Singapore at a total cost of Tk 1241.48 crore while each unit will cost US$36.70.

A proposal of Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation received the approval of the committee to import 30,000 metric tons of bagged granular urea fertilizer from Karnaphuli Fertiliser Company (Kafco), while the Disaster Management and Relief Ministry’s proposal received the nod for purchasing of civil works of Community Workfare and Services Support under the emerging multi-sector Rohingya Crisis Response project.