Dhaka, Sept 16: The ouster of the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government in Bangladesh has led to stoppage of construction work for the Rooppur nuclear power plant, Bangladesh’s first nuclear power plant, as the Indian contractor has left the site, a media report said.
Without the transmission line through the Padma and Jamuna rivers, the commissioning of the US$12.65 billion nuclear power plant is not possible, project director Md. Zahedul Hasan said, according to Daily Star.
A total of 669 km of grid line, including 16 km of river crossing line in both Padma and Jamuna, is needed for power transmission to the national grid from the Rooppur nuclear power plant, according to the Power Grid Company Bangladesh (PGCB).
Laying the transmission line across the two rivers forms the bulk of the work and that has not progressed well.
Only 38 percent of the work for the Padma river crossing line has been completed, while the progress on the Jamuna river crossing line is less than 25 percent, according to Md. Delwar Hossain, project director of the river crossing line for the Rooppur transmission line.
The Indian company Transrail Lighting Ltd got the contract for construction of the river crossing line for $524 million: a two km single circuit 400kv line across Padma, and one seven km double circuit 400kv line and another seven km 230kv line through Jamuna.
Of the three river crossing lines, Transrail has agreed to complete two km of 400kv river crossing line in Padma by October so that electricity could be transmitted from Unit-1 of the Rooppur power plant, according to Rooppur project and PGCB officials.
The construction work had to be put on hold from the middle of July due to a huge flow of water in the Padma, Hossain said.
“Then the protests began and most of the workers and experts, who are all foreign nationals, started fearing for their safety and left the country,” he said.
About 150 foreign workers, including 100 Indians and 30 Indonesians, were working in the river crossing lines, according to PGCB.
“Most of them are yet to return, so there is no sign of resuming work. It is hard to give a timeline for when the work would be finished,” Hossain said.
Completing the grid line work is the key priority now, said Rooppur’s project director Hasan.
The first unit of Rooppur was supposed to start in 2023 and the second unit by 2024, as per the original schedule.
According to the revised schedule, the Unit-1 was supposed to start in December but the poor progress of the grid line indicates the deadline will not be met.
The 1,200 megawatt power plant, being built with $11.38 billion soft loan from Russia, is a flagship mega-project of the Awami League government, Daily Star writes.
(UNI)
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