Bangladesh needs to sit down with Adani group for any issues related to the power agreement: MEA

Bangladesh urged to resolve issues with Adani group over energy agreement, amid overdue payments and reevaluation of projects.

Bangladesh should “sit down” with the Adani group and “sort out” the problems that they may have with the Adani group, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Thursday (September 12, 2023). Speaking at the weekly media briefing, Official spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said the agreement pertains to the “private” sector and therefore should be dealt at an approprirate level.

“What you are referring to is a private project. It is bound by a buyer-seller agreement between two parties. One party happens to be an Indian party and the other party happens to be the Bangladeshi party. It is for both these parties to determine what do they want out of this agreement or arrangement,” said Mr. Jaiswal.  

The issue was earlier taken up in Bangladesh publications that reported that the interim administration led by Mohammad Yunus is set to review the terms and conditions associated with the Adani group’s agreement with Bangladesh to buy energy from the Godda power plant in Jharkhand. Earlier, General Secretary of the Bangladesh Nationaist Party Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir had also demanded a relook at Dhaka’s agreement with the Adani group that was sealed in 2017.

“They will have to sit down and sort out issues if they have any,” Mr. Jaiswal added.

According to the agreement between Adani Power (Jharkhand) Ltd agreed to a 25-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) 1496 MW of power. As per the agreement, Bangladesh was expected to purchase 100% of the electricity produced by Adani’s Godda facility. The Godda plant became optimally operational in April 2023. Earlier on 9 September, The Financial Times reported that Adani had informed Dhaka that it had not received $500 million that was part of the overdue payments.

The energy advisor of Bangladesh, Muhammad Fouzul Kabir Khan had stated before that Bangladesh’s power liabilities amounted to $3.7 billion, out of which 492 million were arrears to Adani, out of the total debt of $800 million. The interim government of Bangladesh has been reevaluating many of the projects and decisions taken during the Sheikh Hasina era which ended on 5 August with the flight of Ms. Hasina from Dhaka in the face of a public uprising against her 16-year long rule.

The former Prime Minister of Bangladesh took refuge in India ever since. Several key individuals in the Yunus-administration have mentioned that they want India to extradite Sheikh Hasina, though that has not been officially communicated by Dhaka till now.