POBNEWS24,Dhaka Jan 17,2025 : Adani Power will loot about 4 lakh crores from Bangladesh. This money is outside the price of electricity. Out of this, Bangladesh will have to pay 2.25 lakh crores in the capacity charge sector alone. The remaining 2.5 lakh crores will have to be paid to Adani as additional coal price. This loot amount may increase further due to various reasons including the increase in the value of the dollar. Due to the purchase of electricity at high prices, the electricity price at the consumer level has been increased by 188 percent during the Awami League regime. The production cost and product price have increased due to high-priced electricity. Consumers are losing money. On the other hand, the state treasury has been emptied. Bangladesh’s interests have been trampled on in the agreement with Adani.
The 1,500-megawatt coal-based power plant is located in Jharkhand, India. Bangladesh has no control and supervision, yet it is entirely Bangladesh’s responsibility. All the benefits and profits belong to the Adani Group of India. Under the immunity law, the country’s economy has been pushed to the brink of bankruptcy by approving 91 power plants in 15 years. In the meantime, energy experts have demanded that the agreement be canceled. The High Court recently canceled the immunity law itself. An opportunity has been created to determine the responsibilities and bring the anti-national looting gang under the law. The energy advisor himself said that the Yunus government is not able to move forward even after amending the agreement. The Bangladesh government vs. Adani dispute may eventually reach the international court. In that case, the experts concerned are also skeptical about how much benefit Bangladesh will get. An analysis of the agreement signed by the Bangladesh Power Development Board (PDB) with Adani and the documents exchanged between the two parties has shown that each clause and sub-clause of the agreement has been arranged in such a way that the Adani Group alone gets the benefits. The previous government has entered into a completely unilateral agreement without protecting the interests of Bangladesh.
Adani’s agreement with the PDP was signed on November 5, 2017. The Ministry of Power and Energy was under the supervision of Sheikh Hasina at that time. The Energy Affairs Advisor was Toufiq Elahi Chowdhury, who was arrested in the July murder case and is in prison. The State Minister was Nasrul Hamid. He is also now absconding. The then Chairman of PDB was Engineer Khalid Mahmud. He remains in the country.
The leaders of India’s top local businessmen Adani Group are known to be very close to the ruling Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It was already clear that the high-level involvement and understanding of the governments of the two countries in the agreement with Adani against the interests of Bangladesh was clear. Standing in the Indian Parliament, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that Bangladesh was forced to sign the agreement by pressuring Adani to give special benefits.
The government had formed a 6-member committee in 2016 to buy Adani’s power, with the Joint Secretary of the Power Department, Unnayan Sheikh Faizul Amin, as the member secretary. That committee opined that the price of this group’s power was higher than that of Bangladeshi companies. Surprisingly, the same committee recommended buying Adani’s power for a period of 25 years. To facilitate loot, the committee recommended that this agreement be made under the Electricity and its Rapid Supply Increase (Liability Release) Act. According to the recently repealed indemnity law, there was no opportunity to question the agreement with Adani in any court of the country.
The Adani Group’s power plant has an installed capacity of 1,498 MW. According to the agreement, BPDB will never be able to take electricity from this plant below 34 percent. Even if Bangladesh takes less electricity, Bangladesh will pay Adani the entire price of the coal used to produce 34 percent of the electricity. Adani will not only get the price of coal, but also the cost of coal transport, port costs and coal transport.
One of the largest coal-based power plants in Bangladesh is the government-owned RPCL and Rampal 1323 MW power plant in Payra, Patuakhali. The power plant will receive a price of 493.48 grams of coal per unit of electricity production. However, Adani will receive 555.43 grams of coal for the same amount of electricity. This will make Adani take 6 thousand crore taka more per year due to the additional coal price. That is, Adani will steal 1.5 to 2.5 lakh crore taka due to the additional coal price in 25 years.
The system loss of coal has been fixed at 1.10 percent in the agreement with Adani. That is, Adani will be able to claim that 1,100 tons of coal was lost during the transportation of 1 lakh tons of coal. There is no provision for system loss in the two power plants in Payra and the Rampal plant in the agreement.
Bangladesh is also losing money in the capacity charge sector due to suicidal conditions. There are four parts to the capacity payment in the agreement. These are variable plant rent, fixed plant rent, USCP index (United States inflation rate) and maintenance money. Adani will only pay about 6 per unit of power as capacity payment. Which is 7 taka 26 paisa in local currency. Accordingly, Adani will only charge about 9,500 crore taka per year in plant rent. In 25 years, it will stand at 2.15 lakh crore taka in Bangladeshi currency. The average capacity of gas-based and oil-based rental power plants in Bangladesh ranges from 90 paisa to 1 taka 20 paisa per unit.
The Adani group has also resorted to fraud in the coal trade. The Customs and Intelligence Department has received information that Adani has committed fraud in his own country, India. The coal extracted from Adani’s fields is imported at a price that is arbitrary and increases the price. There are allegations of manipulation against Adani at prices up to double.
The electricity price is demanded from the buyer in line with the market price of coal, gas or oil. Adani has its own coal mines in Australia, South Africa and Indonesia. The Customs and Intelligence Department of India has found evidence that they always show the price of coal extracted from those fields higher than the market price. In July 2016, the Customs and Intelligence Department submitted a report to the Indian government in this regard. It said that coal importers showed prices 50 to 100 percent higher than the actual price for imports.
According to the agreement, Bangladesh has to inform in advance how much electricity it will take every 3 months. Even if Bangladesh consumes less electricity than this, it will have to pay the same price as the declared measurement. However, PDB consumes as much electricity as it needs from the private power plants in Bangladesh.
According to the agreement, Adani can sell electricity to a third party if it wishes. If the plant gets a higher price from a third party, they can sell electricity there, and Bangladesh will have nothing to say about it. Bangladesh and India need electricity more during the summer. Now if Adani supplies electricity to India in the summer and to Bangladesh in the winter, it will not be profitable for Bangladesh. But according to the agreement, Bangladesh will have nothing to do.
In the meantime, India has changed its power purchase policy on August 12. According to the new policy, Indian government and private institutions will be able to buy electricity from Adani’s Gedda power plant. Under this policy, Adani will be able to sell electricity to India and get benefits from Bangladesh in various ways under the agreement. In this regard, the current chairman of PDB, Engineer Khalid Mahmud, told this reporter that I was in charge for some time during the process of Adani’s agreement. In this regard, Fauzul Kabir Khan, current advisor on power and energy, said that a committee is working to uncover the losses caused by the agreement with Adani.
