The Bangladesh government has urged Adani Power to fully restore power supply to the country from its plant in Jharkhand’s Godda district, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

Shares of Adani Power rose by 4.2% in early trading on Tuesday on the heels of this development, reaching a high of Rs 511.85 for the day on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Adani Power exports electricity to Bangladesh from its 1,600-megawatt plant in Godda under an agreement signed in 2017. The plant comprises two units with a capacity of 800 megawatts each.

On October 31, the Adani Group company halved its supply on account of delayed payments triggered by a shortage of foreign exchange in Bangladesh. The company on November 1 closed one of its units in Godda, leaving the plant operating at a capacity of about 42%.

Dhaka subsequently asked Adani Power to continue supplying only the electricity from the lone operating unit at the Godda plant.

However, the government-run Bangladesh Power Development Board has now asked the firm to resume supplies from the second unit. It said it had been paying $85 million per month, or Rs 737.4 crore, to the Adani Group to settle outstanding dues, Reuters reported.

“We are trying to pay more, and our intention is to reduce the overdue,” said Rezaul Karim, the chairperson of the Bangladesh Power Development Board. “Now there is no big issue with Adani.”

Karim said that Adani Power had planned to “synchronise the second unit” on Monday, but could not do so because of technical problems.

Adani Group’s power exports to Bangladesh

The agreement between the Adani Group and the Bangladesh government was signed during the rule of the Awami League government headed by deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. As part of the agreement, 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 Bangladesh 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, Sheikh Hasina resigned as Bangladesh’s prime minister and fled to India amid protests seeking her ouster. Nobel laureate economist Muhammad Yunus took over as the head of the interim government on August 8.

In September, The Indian Express had 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.

The reports about Bangladesh re-examining the terms for Indian businesses came two days after the Financial Times reported that the Adani Group had warned the neighbouring country that its overdue payments – amounting to more than $500 million, or over Rs 4,198.7 crore – had become unsustainable.

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