Barapukuria Coal Power Plant will run for Eid

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Bipul Sarker Sunny, Dinajpur
Published : 00:02, Aug 20, 2018 | Updated : 00:07, Aug 20, 2018

Barapukuria Coal Power PlantPower Development Board, PDB, wants to supply uninterrupted electricity to the northern part of the country for Eid ul Azha. Therefore, the now shut Barapukuria Coal Power Plant will go into production.
To this aim, coal is being accumulated from the mine.
Officials say that by running the plant, they will be able to supply smooth power to eight northern districts, confirmed the manager of the plant, engineer Mahbubur Rahman.
Due to coal crisis, the only coal based plant was shut down on 22 July last.
The PDB became helpless since the power plant was closed for the whole of summer.
Rangpur head of Northern Electricity Supply, Shahadat Hossain Sarkar, said: “in the eight districts, 650 megawatt of power is needed every day and the national grid only supplies 500 to 550 megawatt.”
As a result, people in the northern area face load-shedding plus low voltage, he added.
The combined capacity of three units of Barapukuria is 525 megawatt.
Manager of Barapukuria power plant, engineer Mahbubur Rahman, says: “we are accumulating coal and the plant will be switched on the day before Eid and will run for five to six days.”
He also said that every day, 100 to 500 tonnes of coal are being extracted from Barapukuria and, by Saturday, 18 August, the reserve has exceeded 5000 tonnes.
Meanwhile, chief engineer of the plant, Abdul Hakim Sarkar, said: “at least, 24 hours are needed to start the plant and six hours to shut it down.”
Coal production at Barapukuria stopped in mid-June after coal reserve was exhausted.
A new tunnel was built and coal was found, he added. On 20 June last, Barapukuria coal authority confirmed PDB that there’s 1 lakh 80 thousand tonnes of coal preserved at the yard.
Meanwhile, MD of the mine, ATM Nuruzzaman Chowdhury and deputy MD, Khaledur Islam were temporarily suspended along with others over a massive corruption in coal reserves that has rocked the nation.
Several high ranking officials of the plant are being quizzed by the ACC.

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