Beximco writes to CA urging security for country’s largest solar plant

Highlights:

  • Beximco Personnel writes a letter to linked govt depts for security
  • The team says if the plant is broken, this can now now not be that which that it is advisable to possibly well most definitely most definitely furthermore imagine for the company to repay loan instalments taken thru Sukuk bonds
  • A team of folks gathered and attempted to attack the 200MW solar energy plant in Gaibandha on 7 September
  • Locals highlighted a bunch of irregularities and alleged corruption within the Beximco Vitality Company Ltd challenge
  • Beximco Personnel has requested Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus to set up certain the protection of Teesta Solar Runt – the nation’s largest solar energy plant and a subsidiary of the trade giant – from capacity mob assaults.

    The team, owned by businessman Salman F Rahman – who served deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina as her non-public trade and investment adviser – said that if the plant is broken, this can now now not be that which that it is advisable to possibly well most definitely most definitely furthermore imagine for the company to repay the loan instalments taken thru Sukuk bonds.

    Salman used to be arrested final month and has since been held on remand just a few cases in different situations linked to the deaths within the middle of the pupil-led revolt that resulted in the fall of the Hasina authorities on 5 August.

    “We earnestly query instantaneous enhance from the Chief Adviser’s Spot of industrial and other linked offices or departments to guard the solar park from any untoward incident and to reveal fundamental instructions to regulations enforcement to present a boost to security,” Osman Kaiser Chowdhury, director of Personnel Finance and Corporate Affairs at Beximco Personnel, acknowledged in a letter to the linked authorities departments, including the executive adviser and finance adviser.

    “We on my own is now now not going to have faith the flexibility to have faith such an attack,” the letter added.

    Chowdhury wrote the letter for enhance, announcing a team of folks gathered and attempted to attack the 200MW solar energy plant on 7 September.

    The letter said, “We’re receiving files that on 7 September 2024, or spherical that point, a team of folks will strive to score and attack the 200MW Solar Park at Latshal, Sundorganj, Gaibandha, of Teesta Solar Runt.”

    In maintaining with media reports, residents from riverside areas held a long march and shaped a human chain along the banks of the Teesta River in Sundarganj, Gaibandha, on Saturday. All the plot thru the bellow, locals highlighted a bunch of irregularities and alleged corruption within the Beximco Vitality Company Ltd challenge.

    Audio system at the human chain accused Beximco of seizing land by taking harmless farmers hostage at gunpoint below the pretext of constructing a energy challenge, successfully destroying the river.

    They further claimed that just a few irregularities and depraved practices had occurred within the constructing of the plant on that land.

    The solar park is already in industrial operation, promoting energy to the Bangladesh Vitality Pattern Board (BPDB) and contributing to the semi-annual payments to the Sukuk holders of Beximco Green-Sukuk.

    “Now, if there could be any destruction or wound to the solar park from such gatherings and assaults, that are beyond our retain watch over, the park’s capacity and effectivity to generate electrical energy could possibly well most definitely be compromised, most definitely main to a full shutdown,” acknowledged the letter.

    “Consequently, this grief – attributable to factors beyond our retain watch over – will have faith unfavorable results, including the non-know-how and non-present of electrical energy to BPDB, affecting future semi-annual payments to Sukuk holders, jeopardising the compensation talents to lenders for the solar challenge, piquant compliance with the provisions of the have confidence deed of Beximco Green-Sukuk, and other contractual duties, while furthermore growing a possibility of job losses.”

    A call from this correspondent to Kaiser’s cell cellphone on Sunday went unanswered. Messages sent to his WhatsApp furthermore obtained no response.

    Beximco Vitality Runt, a subsidiary of Beximco Personnel, built the energy plant on 650 acres of land in Anabadi Char, Sundarganj upazila. The corporate has invested approximately $300 million, or Tk3,000 crore, within the challenge.

    Beximco Personnel has raised a crammed with Tk3,000 crore thru inexperienced Sukuk bonds, of which Tk1,800 crore has been invested on this solar energy plant.

    The authorities licensed the challenge in 2016, and BPDB has signed a 20-twelve months contract to purchase electrical energy from the plant at a rate of 0.15 cents per kilowatt-hour, the ideal rate for any licensed solar energy plant to this level.

    Since December 2022, the energy generated from the plant has been fed into the nationwide grid, including 200 MW of electrical energy day to day.