Jumbangla Desk: Bangladesh will continue to buy electricity from Indian industrial group Adani Power despite objections about electricity prices. Concerns about power supply in the country and legal complications are not canceling the contract with the company. Reuters reported this information in a report on Friday, citing two sources directly connected to the matter.

The interim government has constituted an expert committee to verify whether the agreements made by the Sheikh Hasina government have protected the nation's interest. The committee will scrutinize projects mainly initiated under special laws and lacking transparency.

An agreement was signed with the Adani Group in 2017 during the tenure of the Awami League government. Bangladesh signed an agreement to buy electricity from the 1600 MW power plant located at Godda in Jharkhand for 25 years. The deal is being scrutinized due to price-related concerns in purchasing power.

The project meets about one-tenth of Bangladesh's electricity needs, said a source on condition of anonymity because the matter is sensitive. So it will be difficult to cancel Adani's deal outright. The second source said that without strong evidence, there is a risk that the legal challenge in the international court will fail. In such cases, if it is not possible to withdraw from the agreement, the only possible alternative would be a mutual agreement to reduce the duty.

When asked, the interim government's energy advisor Fawzul Kabir Khan said that the committee is currently reviewing the matter and it would not be appropriate to make any comment in advance.

An official of the Bangladesh Power Development Board (PDB) said, quoting the latest audit for the fiscal year 2023-24, it costs Bangladesh about Tk 12 to buy a unit of electricity from Adani Power. This is 27 percent higher than other private power generation companies in India and 63 percent higher than the Indian state-owned power generation companies.

In this regard, a spokesperson of Adani said that under the agreement, Bangladesh has taken 1,160 MW of electricity from Adani and other Indian power plants from April 2023. Adani has given no indication that Bangladesh will renegotiate the deal. Apart from that we are still supplying power to Bangladesh despite the increase in arrears, which is a matter of concern.

Bangladesh is struggling to pay 800 million dollars owed to Adani Power. Apart from this, Indian power companies in total get 1 billion dollars from Bangladesh. Due to the dollar crisis in Bangladesh, the payment of these dues is becoming complicated.