The supply of electricity from Adani Group's coal-fired power plant at Godda in Jharkhand, India, has been halted completely, exacerbating the power crisis in Bangladesh.
The power plant supplies around 1,500 megawatts of electricity from its two units to Bangladesh through Rahanpur in Chapainawabganj. One of them has been out of production for routine maintenance, while the other halted power generation due to a technical glitch on Friday.
The power company could not provide any exact timeframe for the resumption of electricity supply.
Two officials of the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB) and the Bangladesh Power Development Board (PDB) confirmed the developments to Prothom Alo.
According to them, the second unit halved its power generation on 25 June due to technical issues and had since been scaling up gradually. However, a technical glitch led to a complete suspension of power generation at the unit at 9:43 am on Friday. There have been efforts to fix the issues.
Earlier, the first unit went into maintenance amid a low demand during the Eid holidays and is expected to resume power generation on 5 July. The two units have a production capacity of 800 MW each.
Adding to the woes, a 622 MW unit of the Payra power plant has been under maintenance since 25 June.
The sudden halt in electricity supply has led to a severe power crisis across the country, with rural areas suffering from severe load shedding.
However, the situation improved to some extent thanks to lower demand amid rain on Saturday.
Khandkar Mokammel Hossain, a member of the BPDB, told Prothom Alo that a power crisis was created due to the abrupt suspension of supply from the second unit. The Adani power plant is supposed to resume power generation in its first unit on 5 July, while the exact time for resuming power generation in the second unit is yet to be determined.
The Adani power plant began supplying an average of 750 MW electricity from its first unit in March last year, while the second unit went into operation in June.