State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid has blasted Siemens India for the company’s 30-month delay in completing work on 24 power substations in the capital city.

Nasrul’s outburst came during inauguration of the newly constructed substations, each having 33-11 kV capacity, of Dhaka Electric Supply Company (Desco) on Thursday. 

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“Please, reconsider awarding contracts to those bidders who delay or fail to complete the jobs as per schedule”, he told power sector officials in a virtually delivered speech.

The function, with Desco chairman and additional secretary of the Power Division Sheikh Faizul Amin in the chair, was also addressed by Power Secretary Habibur Rahman and Desco Managing Director Kausar Ameer Ali.  

The Desco Chief noted that the Siemens India, the contractor of the project, started work in 2017, but it took an additional 30 months to complete it. 

Nasrul instructed the top officials of Desco, the project implementing agency, to impose liquidated damage (LD) as penalty for this delay in completing the jobs. 

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“Many of the industries have been deprived of electricity supply due to the delay in completing the job...For this they have to incur a huge financial loss”, he told the officials saying, ``You must take action against Siamese India. 

He also alleged that the same contractor has installed a power substation at his constituency in Keraniganj which is substandard and fails to function properly. 

“You must take into consideration in future about such failed companies while awarding any contract”, said the annoyed-looking state minister. 

He also advised Desco to take immediate measures for upgrading the newly installed substations or else these will lose their capacity by 2025. 

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“If you don’t initiate an up-gradation project, these substations will not work after 2025”, he said, adding that Desco has to take steps immediately as the tendering process takes huge amount of time.                  

Desco Managing Director informed that it spent Tk 3,75.51 crore to build the new substations at 24 locations across the city which will serve 450,000 consumers to receive quality electricity and help reduce system loss by 1.21 per cent from existing 8.5 per cent to 7.29 per cent.