Bangladesh has held talks with India for getting an additional 100 megawatts of electricity from Tripura.
The meeting was held between Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh yesterday, on the sidelines of the Bimstec summit yesterday.
“Both the leaders want cooperation in the energy sector and the additional import of Indian electricity came up,” said a foreign ministry official.
Bangladesh imports 500MW of power from India and Dhaka has been asking for an additional 100MW from Palatana power plant in Tripura for the last three years.
In yesterday’s meeting, both leaders from Bangladesh and India stressed on a sub-regional hydroelectricity initiative that could help to resolve the power crisis in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Bhutan.
Hasina emphasized on early completion of Teesta water sharing agreement and hoped that the land boundary agreement between the two countries would be ratified as soon as possible, the official said.
The Indian premier assured Hasina that they would look into the issue.
Bangladesh and India failed to pen the Teesta agreement in 2011 because of strong protests from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, while different stakeholders including Indian main opposition party BJP strongly opposed the hurried ratification of the land boundary agreement.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina went to Myanmar on Monday to attend the third Bimstec summit in Naypyitaw, where she also had sideline meetings with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Nepalese Prime Minister Sushil Koirala.
Following the two-day visit, Hasina returned to Dhaka at 9pm yesterday.
