New Delhi: Bangladesh’s newly-appointed central bank governor Ahsan H. Mansur may have provided a clue as to why India recently amended its rules to allow power exporters to also sell within India.
According to Mansur, Bangladesh owes as much as $800 million of unpaid dues to Adani Power, the largest Indian exporter of power to Bangladesh.
Two weeks ago, the Ministry of Power amended its 2018 rules on the export of power to permit exporters to connect to the Indian grid in case the power generator has issued a default notice “for any default including delayed payment”.
At the time, the Congress questioned the amendment, saying it was aimed at benefiting the Adani Group.
Bangladesh currently imports power only from India, of which the Adani Group’s Jharkhand plant at Godda provides the lion’s share. Further, this ultra-supercritical thermal power plant is also the only one in India where 100 percent of its capacity is contractually tied to exports.
According to Mansur, who was speaking to Bloomberg in an interview, Bangladesh owes Adani Power $800 million (about Rs 6,710 crore) in unpaid dues for electricity supplied from the Godda plant.
“If we don’t pay them, they will stop providing electricity,” Bloomberg quoted Mansur as saying.
The Adani Group, however, has expressed its commitment to honouring the power purchase agreement it signed with the Bangladesh Power Development Board.
“This does not affect the existing Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) between Adani Power and Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB),” the Adani Group had told ThePrint in response to queries about the amendments. “We have been providing uninterrupted power to Bangladesh from our Godda plant,” a company spokesperson said.
“Adani Power is committed to fulfil contractual obligations as per BPDB’s demand schedule and provisions of PPA and would look forward to continuing reciprocal fulfilment by BPDB,” he added.
Adani Power Jharkhand Limited (APJL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Adani Power, signed a PPA with BPDB in 2017 to supply 1,496 MW net capacity power from its Godda plant for a period of 25 years through a 400-kV dedicated transmission system connected to the Bangladesh grid.
The latest data available with the BPDB shows Bangladesh imported a total of 2,656 MW of power in 2022-23, all of which came from India. Of this, the Adani Group’s Godda plant supplied 1,496 MW, or 56 percent.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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