Staff Correspondent:

The interim government has repaid an amount of Tk18,631 crore as outstanding foreign power bill against electricity imports, power division officials said Thursday.

“The government has been actively working to settle outstanding bills, including those owed to (India’s) Adani Power and others,” Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Adviser Dr Muhammad Fouzul Kabir Khan told journalist.

He said of the amount the power division has paid Tk5000 crore to Adani Power Limited against its dues of Tk7934.89 crore as electricity bill, and “now the Adani will get Tk2,363.50 crore”.

Khan said that the government took various steps to minimize avoidable expenditures related to different power projects, and so far Tk6,479 crore has been saved.

Power division officials said that under an extensive effort in the past year, they reduced the import service charge by 4% worth Tk470 crore from 9% for energy import for private power plants.

Apart from this, the quantity of shipment was increased to 20,000 tonnes from 15,000 tonnes, which will also save Tk354 crore.

Tariff renegotiation was done, which is lower than the average selling price of Tk8.95 per unit to save Tk2,500 crore annually.

Meanwhile, the government shut down 10 inefficient and outdated old plants by Independent Power Producers (IPPs) or rental power plants having a generation capacity of 1010 MW, which saved Tk525 crore.

Besides, steps were taken to save Tk2630 crore through the public power generation companies.

The power division requested the National Board of Revenue (NBR) to reduce tax at source to 6%, while the revenue income was targeted at Tk9210 crore from renting establishments.

On May 6, the advisory council meeting approved an amendment to the Renewable Energy Policy in principle.

Under the renewable energy policy, the government fixed a target to produce 3,000 MW of green energy from rooftop solar panels across the country.

The rooftop solar programmes will be implemented by December this year, while the extra electricity will be connected to the national grid.