[ALOCHONA] Indian media report on Palatana plant

Dhaka brushes aside Indian media report on Palatana plant

India is setting up a power plant at Palatana in Tripura's south depending on gas from Bangladesh, said a report published in the Kolkata-based Bengali daily newspaper Anandabazar Patrika on Wednesday.According to the Anandabazar Patrika report, the project implementing agency ONGC Tripura Power Company, a joint venture of Oil and Natural Gas Commission, Tripura government and infrastructural leasing and financial services, was formed in 2008.Basically, the power station of two 326MW units is going to be set up based on Bangladeshi gas,' the report says.

Anandabazar Patrika said this on the occasion when heavy equipment and machinery for the giant OTPC power project reached Tripura from Haldia port in West Bengal after being transhipped for the first time through Bangladesh on Wednesday.Four big lorries carrying the over-dimensional cargoes each weighing about 180 tonnes entered Tripura through the Akhaura land port from Ashuganj port on the River Meghna in eastern Bangladesh.

The energy division and state run oil, gas and mineral resources corporation Petrobangla of Bangladesh, however, brushed aside Anandabazar Patrika's report saying that no such agreement had been made between Bangladesh and India.The energy secretary, Mesbah Uddin, told New Age that they were not concerned about the export of gas to the power plant in Tripura.He said that it was quite absurd thinking that Bangladesh would export gas amid acute gas shortage at home.

Petrobangla is now supplying less than 2000 million cubic feet of natural gas to the national grid with a shortfall of at least 500 million cubic feet a day.The state-run Power Development Board has not been able to generate at least 700MW of power for more than two years because of gas shortage.Industrial production and household cooking have been hampered for two years because of the gas shortage. Entrepreneurs cannot also make investments because of gas shortage.

Quoting a high OTPC official, the Anadabazar Patrika report said that first unit of the power plant having a capacity 326MW would be set up by December 2011.The report also said that the project had been designed after the agreement between Hasina and Manmohan.Infrastructural works had been done in three months to transport the giant machines 100 kilometers from Ashuganj to Paltana in Tripura, the report said.For this, 16 bypasses in Bangladesh and eight bypasses in Tripura were constructed. In addition, three jetties and three parking lots were also constructed.

http://newagebd.com/newspaper1/frontpage/13749.html

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