Adani restores full electricity supply to Bangladesh after four months

Adani had to halve supply to conflict-hit country as Dhaka defaulted on payments while battling a foreign exchange shortage

India’s top conglomerate Adani group has restored the full electricity supply to Bangladesh from an Indian power plant four months after it stopped the connection over unpaid dues.

Adani Power was supplying critical 1,600 MW of electricity to Bangladesh only from a neighbouring Indian eastern state of Jharkhand.

However, Adani had to halve the supply to the conflict-hit country on 31 October as Dhaka defaulted on payments while battling a foreign exchange shortage.

The resumption of power supply to Bangladesh, which took place nearly two weeks ago, was confirmed by an official in Dhaka.

“We're making regular payments to Adani and receiving power as per our requirements," Rezaul Karim, chairman of the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB), told Bloomberg on Thursday.

The resumption comes almost a month after Adani Power said it had agreed to fully restore supply from a 1,600 MW India power plant to Bangladesh in a few days after a gap of three months but rejected Dhaka's request for discounts and tax benefits, two sources had told Reuters.

The halving of power supply to Bangladesh by its neighbourhood conglomerate led to the shutdown of one of the two equal-sized units of the plant on 1 November, followed by Bangladesh's request to keep supplying only half the power, citing low winter demand and as the payment issue bubbled.

Dhaka has been faltering on making payments to Adani Power since supply started in July 2023. India’s neighbour to its east now owes several hundred million dollars for energy that has already been supplied, though the two sides dispute the exact size of the bill.

According to an Adani source in December, Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) owes Adani Power about $900m.

However at the time, Mr Karim said the country’s dues totalled only to about $650m. The pricing dispute revolves around how power tariffs are calculated. BPDB earlier wrote to Adani Power seeking tax benefits worth millions of dollars and resumption of a discount programme that ran for a year until May.