AGARTALA, December 1 (TIWN): The Palatana project is a hallmark of cooperation between India and Bangladesh, which ensured smooth passage of heavy project equipment and turbines to Palatana through its territory by road and waterways, from Haldia port in West Bengal.

Prime Minister probably touched the hearts of the crowd gathered in Palatana and also the people of Bangladesh when he said," This (Palatana) is the place where the Friends of Bangladesh during the 1971 Liberation War took shelter as got assistance from the people of Tripura. And from now again the historical bond will be revived as Bangladesh will import power from OTPCs Palatana plant . I am grateful to the Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hassina because it is she who took the initiative in allowing ONGC to bring the heavy machineries here.  And now I assure that if Bangladesh wants to import power from India, we will let them buy power. "

      Interestingly Dr Taufiq e-Illahi , who is the Advisor to the Prime Minister of Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, was at the refugee camp at Palatana in 1971 and he too was emotional in saying ," I came here in Palatana again after 45 years ." 

Meanwhile, India had commenced supply of 250 MW of power to Bangladesh last year after the government-run Bangladesh Power Development Board and India's NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam Ltd (NVVN), a subsidiary of India's National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), signed a deal Feb 28, 2012 to supply 250 MW of electricity, following an agreement signed during Hasina's visit to New Delhi in January 2010.

To provide power to Bangladesh, 400 kV switching station has been set up at Baharampur in West Bengal by loop-in-loop out of the existing 400 kV Farakka-Jeerat transmission line. The cross-border inter-connection has been established between Baharampur (India) and Bheramara (Bangladesh).

"A 400KV high transmission power line (660 km) has been drawn up to Silchar in southern Assam from Palatana to connect with the Bongaigaon national grid in western Assam to distribute the electricity to various northeastern states," OTPC managing director Sudhindra Kumar Dube said.

The then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh laid the foundation stone of the OTPC power project in October 2005.

Without Bangldesh help building OTPC would have been impossible as narrow roads and meter gauge railway lines via north east India not capable to carry heavy equipments. Many accidents, derailments of equipments took place , Tripura govt built many temporary bridges to transport these heavy equipments.

Bangladesh made Ashuganj Port available for transportation of OTPC’s heavy equipments from BHEL Hyderabad.

Bangladesh in June 2010 agreed to provide transit facility through Ashuganj port for transportation of heavy duty equipment required for the work on the 727-MW gas-based project being set up by ONGC Tripura Power Co Ltd (OTPC). On completion of the project it would be the largest power project of the North-Eastern region. The project would also facilitate production of 5.5-6 million standard cubic metre gas in Tripura by ONGC. A consortium of Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL) and GE is the EPC (engineering procurement and construction) contractor for the power project in Tripura.