In the meantime, the JV company will complete its registration process and finalise a draft power purchase agreement as per which the BPDB will buy electricity from the company, ASM Alamgir Kabir, chairman of power board, said.
He also said that BPDB would float tender for importing 250mw electricity from Indian open market and before that the power board would secure Indian approval for that.
‘Apart from the import of 250mw of power from India’s unallocated quota, we shall buy another 250mw of power from Indian private sector producers through tender process,’ he said after returning from a four-day visit to India.
The decisions came from a series of meetings between top power sector officials of Bangladesh and India held in New Delhi since February 27.
Power board and NTPC’s subsidiary National Vidyut Vikas Nigam at a meeting of joint steering committee initialled the document of power purchase agreement for importing 250mw electricity.
Power secretary Mohammad Abul Kalam Azad led the Bangladesh delegation.
Alamgir said that the JV company’s board chairman would be from Bangladesh side and managing director from Indian side for the first eight years.
‘We have proposed the power secretary to be the chairman of the JV company and BPDB chairman and member of company affairs to represent Bangladesh side. NTPC proposed two names – that of its chairman and managing director (CMD) and director commercial – to represent India in the board of the JV company. They would soon send another name who will be the managing director of the new company,’ Alamgit said.
‘After the government’s approval of the proposed members for the board of the JV company we will form the board,’ he added.
Amid protest from different green activists, rights groups and experts, BPDB on January 29 signed a deal with NTPC to set up the joint-venture company for installing and operating the proposed coal-fired plant at Bagerhat.
Experts feared that the coal-fired power plant might destroy Sundarbans as the plant’s location has been selected within four kilometre range of the Sundarban’s environmentally endangered area and 10 Km range of buffer zone.
They said that the project would destroy the ingredients of the soil that support the lives of thousands of inhabitants of a large region, increase the proportion of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide in the air, and seriously harm the flora and fauna of the Sundarbans, one of the world’s largest mangrove forests.