04/02/26Dhaka, Delhi plan Sylhet power
link (bdnews25.wapamp.com/Dhaka)
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Bangladesh and India are
working on a proposal to set
up a power grid interconnection
linking Sylhet and northeastern
Indian state of Meghalaya. If the proposed power grid
interconnection becomes a
reality, it would be the second
cross-border electricity
transmission link between
Bangladesh and India. Dhaka and New Delhi are already
developing a grid
interconnection between
Berhampur in India's eastern
state of West Bengal and
Bheramara in Khulna division of Bangladesh with the
capacity for transmission of up
to 500MW power. Bangladesh's High
Commissioner to India Tariq A
Karim said the proposed
second grid interconnection
between Chattak of Sunamganj
district in Sylhet division and Sohra in Meghalaya would
have a capacity to transmit of
about 130MW power. Karim and Gowher Rizvi,
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's
International Affairs Adviser,
last week travelled to
Meghalaya to meet state's
Chief Minister Mukul Sangma and top officials of the state
government. Sylhet and Meghalaya share a
443-km stretch of the
Bangladesh-India border. Bangladesh's envoy said that a
detailed study on the feasibility
of the proposed power grid
interconnection would be carried
out. The Chattak-Sohra transmission
link was one of the several
power grid interconnections
proposed in a Jan 2005 study
prepared for the United States
Agency for International Development. The study for
the USAID's South Asia
Regional Initiative for Energy
had pegged the estimated cost
of setting up the 50-km-long
transmission line at Indian Rupees 60 million. Sohra is just 10 km away
from the Bangladesh-India
border and is also known as
Cherrapunji � once famous as
the wettest place on earth. Sangma, the Meghalaya Chief
Minister, told Karim and Rizvi
that several power projects
would come up in the state in
the coming years and the grid
interconnection would facilitate supply of surplus power across
the border. Dhaka has also proposed to
build a cross-border conveyer
belt to supply coal from
Meghalaya for a power project
on the Bangladesh side of the
border. The Lafarge Umiam Mining
Private Limited now operates
such a cross-border conveyer
belt that supplies limestone
from Meghalaya to Lafarge
Surma Cement Limited's cement plant in Chattak. The
Lafarge Umiam Mining Private
Limited is a wholly-owned
subsidiary of the Lafarge
Surma Cement Limited or
LSCL.
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