Inset: Bangladesh's interim leader Muhammad Yunus; Adani Group logo
Credit: PTI and Reuters Photo
New Delhi: Muhammad Yunus’s regime in Bangladesh may soon review the major power contracts signed by the country’s erstwhile government of Sheikh Hasina between January 2009 and August 2024, including the one with Adani Group of India.
Just days after billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani was indicted in a court in the United States for his alleged role in a bribery scam, a committee set up by the interim government led by economist Muhammad Yunus in Dhaka put under scrutiny a 2017 agreement between the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) with Adani Power Limited.
The panel recommended the appointment of a reputed legal and investigative company to help review the BPDB’s deal with Adani Power Jharkhand Limited (APJL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Adani Power Limited, as well as six other power contracts, including the one with a state-owned company of China.
The National Review Committee on the Ministry of Power, Energy, and Mineral Resources has recommended the appointment of a reputed legal and investigation agency to review power agreements signed during the autocratic regime of Sheikh Hasina from 2009 to 2024, according to a statement issued by the office of Muhammad Yunus, the chief advisor of the interim government of Bangladesh on Sunday.
Hasina’s Awami League government in Dhaka had collapsed on August 5 this year in the wake of a mass agitation against the crackdown on the students and youths protesting reservation in public sector jobs. She had flown to the Indian Air Force base at Hindon in the National Capital Region of India just hours before her official residence – Gana Bhavan – had been stormed by hundreds of protesters. Yunus had taken over as the chief advisor of the interim government three days later.
The statement, issued by Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus’s office, said that the committee was currently reviewing seven major power deals.
The 2017 power purchase agreement set the stage for the APJL to supply Bangladesh with 1,496 MW of power from its 2X800 MW Ultra Super Critical Thermal Power Plant set up in Godda in Jharkhand for 25 years via a 400 kV dedicated transmission system connected to the grid in the neighbouring country.
The committee had “enormous proof” warranting the agreements be “scrapped or reconsidered” in line with international arbitration laws and procedures, according to the statement issued by the office of the chief advisor (de facto prime minister) in Dhaka on Sunday. It added that the committee needed additional time to further analyse other solicited and unsolicited power contracts clinched during the prime ministerial tenure of Hasina.
“In doing so, we recommend the immediate appointment of one or more top-level international legal and investigation agencies or agencies to assist the committee,” the statement said, quoting a letter from the committee headed by retired High Court judge Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury.
The Adani Group recently sent a letter to the Government of Bangladesh over its unpaid $800 million power supply. The Bangladesh Power Development Board said that it had already paid $150 million.