The government plans to sign an agreement with Nepal in order to invest in hydropower projects in the Himalayan country to produce and import electricity, the state minister for power said yesterday.

The deal will be signed within a month, Nasrul Hamid said at the monthly “meet the reporters” programme of the Dhaka Reporters Unity at its auditorium in the capital.

Bangladesh is increasingly looking outside to meet its growing demand for electricity. Though the country more than doubled its power generation in the last eight years, one-third of the population still does not have access to electricity, while the government plans to bring all households under the electricity coverage by 2021.

Hamid said the government has made similar proposal to Bhutan. “India has agreed to allow Bangladesh to use its land in order to import electricity from Bhutan and Nepal.”

At present, the country imports 600 megawatt of electricity from India. The aim of the government is to import 10,000MW from neighbouring countries, Hamid said, adding that it takes five to seven years to produce electricity from a hydropower project. 

On the continuation of the rental power plants, he said: “Although we have continued the plants so that we do not face any sudden deficit, we have halved the tariff for the electricity produced from these plants.”

The government is buying electricity from these plants as major power plants could not be implemented for various reasons, he added.

He said although the government has initiated efforts to discover hydrocarbon resources in the Bay of Bengal, it would take five to six years to get the results.

Meanwhile, the government is in talks to be connected with the Turkmenistan– Afghanistan–Pakistan–India gas pipeline as part of its efforts to bring gas from international sources. The pipeline project has progressed a lot, Hamid said. 

He also said the ministry has prepared a draft policy on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to ensure that the products are sold across the country at the same price.

The policy would be approved within a month.