Construction of two power plants in Munsiganj has been delayed for two and half years due to complexities over finance and land acquisition.
In 2015, state-owned Electricity Generation Company of Bangladesh (EGCB) and Rural Power Company Limited (RPCL) was tasked with to build a 300MW and 350MW coal-fired power plants respectively in Munsiganj, the neighboring district of capital Dhaka.
As the deadline to looms, the EGCB wrote to the Power Division seeking another one year to complete the land acquisition and rehabilitation project for the plant.
Deadline for constructing the EGCB’s power plant was set at June this year, which the Power Division later extended to June 2019.
Speaking to Bangla Tribune, EGCB Managing Director Ali Kausar Muhammad Firoz said, “We haven’t got the land yet and fund for the plant is yet to be allocated.”
The district administration, however, sent the necessary documents to the Ministry of Land,” said Firoz.
Besides, the RPCL has started acquiring 252 acars of land. But it did not begin construction works as uncertainty looms over the fund.
Sources at RPCL said that the district administration handed over the land and Bangladesh Navy secured the land filling works through open procurement process.
As China will finance the project under the G2G agreements with Bangladesh, fund for the plant will not be disbursed before 2020.
It will take another two years to release the fund in line with the memorandum of understating (MOU), signed with the Power Division during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Dhaka on October 2016, according to the sources.
Citing the plant is funded by the Chinese government, RPCL Executive Director Selim Bhuyian said on Sunday, “Land filling will start in next two days.”
“Tender will be floated after China approves the loan, which will take more than a year,” Bhuyian added.