United News of Bangladesh
The Cabinet Purchase Committee on Wednesday approved a number of proposals, including the setting up of a 60MW wind power plant in Cox’s Bazar in private sector.
As per the proposal, a US-based company, ‘Taylor Engineering & PH Consulting Inc’, will set up the plant under a joint venture with its local partner Multiplex Green Energy Limited at a cost of Tk 117 crore.
The state-owned Power Development Board (PDB) will purchase electricity from the plant at 12 US cents (Tk 9.87) per kilowatt hour for the next 18 years.
For purchasing electricity, the government will have to pay a total of Tk 3,765 crore to the joint venture firm during the contract period.
The Power Division accepted the offer as an unsolicited one. It means the proposal was moved without any tender or competitive bidding process, said an official.
The Power Division applied to the Power and Energy Speedy Supply (Special) Act 2010 to accept the unsolicited offer of the private company. It mentioned in its proposal that this power plant’s costly offer should be acceptable to the government because of the severe power crisis in the country.
After the approval, Finance Minister AMA Muhith who presided over the purchase body meeting said the government will have no cost involvement in implementation of the project. “The government will only buy electricity from the plant when it starts generating power,” he said.
The purchase body also approved a proposal of the Communications Ministry to award the contract of 30.25-km Joydevpur-Mymensingh 4-lane upgradation project’s work to Bangladesh Army cancelling the ongoing tender process.
This portion of the road project is part of the total 87.18-km upgradation project of the Joydevpur-Mymensingh Highway project. This project has been undertaken as part of the Dhaka-Mymensingh Highway project upgradation to 4-lane from the existing 2-lane one.
The proposal to assign the Army to implement this portion of 30.25-km Joydevpur-Mymensingh 4-lane upgradation came following the failure of the contractor to start the project work as per the schedule.
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