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Panel moots regional power grid

By Haroon Habib

DHAKA Nov. 19. The SAARC Technical Committee on Energy has recommended a regional power grid connecting Bangladesh, India, Bhutan and Nepal.

The energy experts also wanted commercially viable electricity flows from generating stations to load centres to be identified. Further discussion to evolve a suitable arrangement for power sharing among the countries would also take place. These recommendations were finalised at the end of a two-day meeting of the technical committee which ended here on Monday.

"All the SAARC countries are hungry for energy... We are ready to extend our cooperation in the power sector in the region," Bangladesh's State Minister for Power, Iqbal Hasan Mahmud, said while addressing the concluding session of the meeting. Although the SAARC was established in 1977, it was "unfortunate" that the first meeting of the Technical Committee on Energy was being held after 25 years, he said, adding, "In reality we could not achieve our goals in SAARC."

Bangladesh's State Minister for Energy and Mineral Resources, A.K.M. Mosharraf Hossain, said, "This (setting up of a power grid) should be a common issue and linked with the energy sector and other issues of interest." They would have to work out a plan to minimise the cost of power through extended cooperation among the countries.

Bangladesh had taken steps for using environment-friendly energy, such as compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied petroleum gas. "But regionally, there is a need for cooperation in other areas, such as reducing the trade gap between India and Bangladesh."

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