Bangladesh panel finds ‘egregious anomalies’ in power supply agreement with Adani Group

A review committee formed by the Bangladesh government said it found “egregious anomalies” in an electricity supply agreement with Indian conglomerate Adani Group, AFP reported on Monday.

At a press conference on Sunday, members of the National Review Committee on Power Purchase Agreements recommended that Bangladesh move an international arbitration tribunal in Singapore to annul the contract, Dhaka Tribune reported.

The committee, formed in September 2024, has been investigating contracts signed during the now-ousted government of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who fled to India in August 2024 after several weeks of widespread student-led protests against her Awami League government.

She had been in power for 16 years.

Relations between Bangladesh and India have been strained since Hasina’s ouster.

Adani Power, a subsidiary of Adani Group, exports electricity to Bangladesh from its 1,600-megawatt plant in Jharkhand’s Godda under an agreement signed in 2017 during the Awami League government. The plant comprises two units with a capacity of 800 megawatts each.

The plant supplies between seven and 10% of Bangladesh’s baseload power demand of 13 gigawatts for its 170 million population.

On Monday, the National Review Committee on Power Purchase Agreements said that the state-owned Bangladesh Power Development Board was paying “4-5 cents more” per unit for electricity from Adani Power compared to power imported from other Indian sources, Dhaka Tribune reported.

This means that the price being paid is roughly 50% higher than what it should be, AFP quoted the committee saying in its report.

The committee members, during the press conference, also claimed that it had uncovered details about alleged illegal transactions worth several million US dollars involving seven to eight persons linked to the agreement with Adani Power, Dhaka Tribune reported.

This has been forwarded to the Anti-Corruption Commission for further investigation, the members added.

In the report, the committee noted that Bangladesh Power Development Board suffered losses up to $4.13 billion in 2024-’25.

Dhaka pays Adani Power $1 billion annually under the 25-year contract, AFP reported.

The report said it was “essential” for agreement to be examined.

It said that these “wrong decisions are not mistakes”, adding that it “suggested a systematic collusion between businesses, politicians and bureaucrats to award overpriced and unnecessary contracts in order to deliberately create huge excess profits that are then shared between these parties”.

Responding to the allegations, Adani Power said it had not seen the report but added that it supplied “amongst the most competitively priced” power, AFP reported.

The Indian conglomerate also demanded that Dhaka pay what it is owed for the energy it had supplied.

“We have continued to honour our supply commitment despite large receivables, when many other generators have cut back or even stopped supplies,” the news agency quoted the spokesperson as saying. “We urge Bangladesh government to liquidate our dues at the earliest as this is impacting our operations.”

Adani Group’s power exports to Bangladesh

Under the agreement between the Adani Group and the Bangladeshi government, the plant in Godda supplies 7% to 10% of Bangladesh’s base load, or the minimum amount of electricity needed to meet a particular region’s demand.

Opposition parties in India have questioned whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi was directly involved in the deal between the Adani Group and the Bangladeshi government.

In Bangladesh too, Adani Power’s electricity exports have long been at the centre of controversy, with experts contending that it entails Dhaka buying power at exorbitantly high prices.

On August 5, 2024, Hasina resigned as Bangladesh’s prime minister and fled to India amid protests seeking her ouster. Nobel laureate economist Muhammad Yunus had taken over as the head of the interim government three days later.

In September 2024, The Indian Express reported that Bangladesh’s interim government headed by Yunus was planning to examine the terms under which Indian businesses, including the Adani Group, operated there.