Rampal Power Plant’s scheduled operation resumption fails

The Rampal power plant in operation. Photo collected

Jehangir Hussain

The authorities failed to resume operation of the 1,320 MW Rampal power plant on Wednesday.

The authorities postponed the scheduled resumption at the last moment.

"This plant was  shutdown on January 14 due to coal supply shortage, coal reached the jetty on February 9, so we decided to resume its  operation on Wednesday," said Anwarul Azim, Deputy General Manager of Bangladesh-India Friendship Power Company Limited (BIFPCL), better known as Rampal power plant.

Earlier, he said that the State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid was expected to visit the plant on Thursday to see the situation on ground as the government plans to operate it during peak summer, but he cancelled his programme.

Rampal unit-1,  under test run, is yet to get the go-ahead signal for commercial operation.

A consignment of 30,000 tonnes of coal that arrived at the plant can be used to run the plant for six days, it needs 5,000 tonnes of coal per day.

Another consignment of 50,000 tonnes of coal is due to arrive soon, officials said.

The 1320 MW plant was set up by India’s state-owned NTPC and Bangladesh Power Development Board under joint venture arrangement.

BIFPCL authorities said the plant’s 2nd unit was expected to be commissioned in June.

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