India to supply more power to Bangladesh, lease internet bandwidth

New Delhi, March 10: India will start supplying 100 MW of power from the northeastern state of Tripura to eastern Bangladesh as well as lease internet bandwidth from the neighbouring country, it was announced on Thursday.

"We will shortly be inaugurating the power connectivity between Palatana (in Tripura) and Bangladesh as well as leasing by BSNL of the 10 GB bandwidth of BSCCL (Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited) from its Cox's Bazar internet port," external affairs ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said at a media briefing here.

"The power connectivity will take our already substantial cooperation in this sector with Bangladesh to a new level as it will allow Bangladesh to address severe power shortages in its southeastern parts," he said.

Pointing out that India was already supplying 500 MW across the Behrampur-Behramara transmission link on the border between West Bengal and Bangladesh, he said India hoped to enhance this further.

As for the leasing of the internet bandwidth from Akhaura in Bangladesh to Agartala, he said due to this new telecom initiative the people of Tripura can avail more reliable internet connectivity and added that this would improve internet speed available in the entire northeastern region.

Bangladesh telecom operators would also be enabled to effectively monetise their already existing infrastructure.

"Currently Tripura is connected solely through the Siliguri corridor," Swarup said.

The decisions in this respect were taken during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Dhaka in June, 2015.

IANS