AGARTALA, August 5 (TIWN): Before leaving office in May 2014, Manmohan Singh led UPA II government responded the long persuaded demand of Tripura to sell power to Bangladesh.The process start rolling and high level bilateral technical survey team of India and Bangladesh for transporting power from Tripura has already met to see the feasibility.

“If everything goes well, by end of the year 2^nd unit of Palatana with generation capacity of 363 MW and 104 MW Monarchak power project will also be operational that will surplus at least 160-170 MW power daily at optimum level of production,” said a senior official of state power department.

Since, the state have to sell the power, trading with Bangladesh will strengthen bilateral relation between two countries. Moreover, transporting power to nearest Bangladesh grid from Tripura is hardly covering a distance of 50-80 Kilometres, which marginalized the transmission loss and also reduce the cost comparing to selling power to Indian states through Bongaigoan, he maintained.

The officer said before announcement of the schedule of 2014 general election in March, Ministry of Power had constituted a seven members study team for power selling from Tripura to Bangladesh in persuasion of left front government of Tripura.

The team comprises with the experts and top officials of both India and Bangladesh as well as an official of Tripura, was asked to file a detail report on the feasibility of transporting power from Suryamaninagar power grid of Tripura to nearest Bangladesh power grid in Comilla or Brahmanbaria district of Bangladesh.

“Ministry of Power recently, sought our view to send the expert team for field level study and other important aspects to sell power to Bangladesh from Tripura and we made it clear that the state will extend all possible cooperation to execute the task at the earliest,” he said.

Tripura government is keen to sell power to Bangladesh since inception of Palatana plant and upcoming Monarchak power project a decade ago considering it’s proximity and cooperation extended by Sheik Hassina government in Bangladesh for transportation of over dimensional consignments for Palatana.

During her last visit to Tripura, Hassina demanded surplus sell-able power from Tripura and Chief Minister Manik Sarkar responded positively and taken up the matter repeatedly with Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Power.

Chief Minister in presence of all other dignitaries reiterated the willingness to sell the surplus to Bangladesh before President Pranab Mukherjee in last year in the formal commission of 363 MW capacity first unit of Palatana.

Meantime, Bangladesh has also taken up the matter with it’s Indian counterpart to purchase power from Tripura projects and finally, Union government has responded and constituted a committee for feasibility.

He however, stated that NEEPCO financed Monarchak power project has been getting delayed due to non-availability of required gas supply from ONGC but the way work is progressing by next six month it would start generation.