The government has extended the term of four power plants on rental basis (quick rental) to two years. The total production capacity of these power plants is 300 MW.

The decision to extend the term of the power plants was taken in the meeting of the cabinet committee on government procurement on Wednesday. Agriculture Minister Abdur Razzak chaired the meeting as Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal was abroad for treatment. This information is known from the sources of the meeting.

According to sources, Power Pack Limited located in Keraniganj, Dhaka and Akron Infrastructure Services in Chittagong have a production capacity of 100 megawatts.

Rajshahi’s Northern Power Solutions and Chapainawabganj’s Sinha Power Generation Limited have a power generation capacity of 50 MW.

The government passed a special law in 2010 to run rental power plants to meet the power shortage on an emergency basis. A new law was passed in September 2021 to extend the term of such power plants by five years.

Despite the fact that the production of diesel-powered power plants has been discouraged, the duration of the power plants has been extended, the chairman of the meeting, Agriculture Minister Abdur Razzak, did not tell the reporters anything about this. Additional Secretary of the Cabinet Division. Abdul Barik usually briefs the journalists after the meeting. He didn’t do that today either.

In response to the question why he did not brief, Abdul Barik said, ‘I was not instructed.’ When asked about the reason for the extension of the term of the power plant, Abdul Barik said, ‘As far as I know, if you do not provide electricity, you will not get money (no electricity, no payment), the period has been extended on this basis. .

Meanwhile, the proposal to import 200,000 tons of rice from Myanmar has been approved by the purchase committee. The price of rice per ton will be 465 dollars. However, there was no opportunity to ask whether it is being bought at a higher price than the market price.

The previous meeting of the Purchase Committee (held on August 31) approved the proposal to import 500,000 tonnes of wheat from Russia and 330,000 tonnes of rice from India and Vietnam. However, the food ministry decided to import wheat from Russia a week earlier on August 24.

On that day, the price of Russian wheat was $330 per ton. However, the price per ton will be 387 dollars to reach the port of Bangladesh. Questions have already been raised due to the import of wheat at an increased rate.