The government has decided not to import electricity from India’s Tripura due to the huge capital required to build a sub-station for the purpose. 

The decision was came from meeting of the 17th Bangladesh-India Joint Steering Committee on Power Assistance at Hotel Intercontinental in Dhaka on Monday (Aug 26).

The government deems investment into building the sub-station needed to import power as unnecessary, according to people familiar with the matter.

The meeting was told that it would cost $300 million to build a Back-to-Back High Voltage Sub-station to bring power from Tripura, they said.

As Bangladesh was able to produce surplus power at present, the sub-station building was not found to be cost-effective or necessary.

The country would continue to import the 160 megawatts of power it has been importing from the north‑eastern Indian state and no more.

The meeting was also told that if the need arose, a gas-fired power plant could be set up using the supply of gas in Cumilla.

India has long been seeking to transport power to its other parts by transmission lines through Bangladesh.

It was decided at the meeting that joint surveys would be undertaken to do detail assessments in this regard.

The meeting also decided to conduct surveys to connect Bangladesh with India through Saidpur’s East Sadipur instead of Parbatipur.

The two countries plan on setting up a proposed Katihar-Parbatipur-Borannagar 765-kilovolt line and a technical survey would be conducted to assess the feasibility of importing power to other parts of Bangladesh from India, added the sources.

The meeting discussed the progess of ongoing power projects and proposals and decided to do a review on exporting power from Bangladesh to India.

Alongside these, the countries discussed the state of the guidelines and regulations on power export followed by India. 

When the Bangladeshi side raised the matter of tax exemption on power imports from India, the Indian side stated that the matter lay under the jurisdiction of the Indian Revenue Department, which would be duly notified.  

After emerging from the meeting, Bangladesh Power Secretary Dr Ahmad Kaikaus told the media that a few sites had been earmarked to the benefit both countries.

Indian Power Secretary Subhash Chadra Garg hoped that the Rampal Power Plant would soon go into production.