India’s Adani Power Jharkhand Limited (APJL) has halted half of its electricity supply to Bangladesh, saying it has not received unpaid bills.

Data from Power Grid Bangladesh PLC showed that the Adani plant reduced its supply on Thursday evening.

The 1,496 megawatt plant now produces around 700 MW from a single unit, impacting national production. Bangladesh reported a deficit of more than 1,600 MW last night.

Earlier, Adani had written to the ruling secretary asking the Bangladesh Power Development Board (PDB) to pay the bills by October 30.

“Otherwise, APJL will be forced to take corrective action under the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) by suspending electricity supply on October 31,” Adani wrote in the letter seen by the Daily Star.

The letter, dated October 27, said: “As you (Secretary) are aware, the deadline is approaching shortly and till date, PDB has neither provided LC in the amount of 170.03 million of Bangladesh Krishi Bank nor settled the outstanding amount of $846 million. “.

A PDB official told The Daily Star that they had cleared some of the previous dues earlier, but since July, Adani has been charging more than in previous months.

He said the PDB pays about $180 million a week, while fees total more than $220 million.

“That is why the due payments have increased further,” he said, adding that they had also submitted last week’s payment to Krishi Bank, but due to a shortage of dollars, the bank had failed to open a letter of credit against payment.

Regarding the additional payment, he said, when the PDB raised a question on the price of coal in February last year, they signed an additional agreement which required Adani to offer coal prices lower than the tariffs charged by other coal-fired power plants, such as Payra and Rampal.

After the additional one-year agreement period, Adani resumed billing in accordance with the PPA. According to the PPA, the price of coal is calculated based on the average prices of two coal indices – the Indonesian Coal Index and the Australian Newcastle Index – which pushes up prices.

Adani’s letter said the company has again asked PDB to accelerate payments for “material defaults” by October 30.

He said Adani had revised the deadline for power supply suspension from October 20 to October 30, in response to a letter from the PDB on October 17, which confirmed that Bangladesh Krishi Bank had agreed to issue LC within 10 working days.

“We reiterate that the non-submission of letters of credit and failure to pay the outstanding amount on time are significant defaults of PDB under the PPA, which have adversely affected APJL’s performance in providing “electricity to PDB,” he said.

“We have been facing enormous difficulties in managing working capital to make payments to coal suppliers and operation and maintenance contractors due to huge unpaid payments from the PDB and non-availability of LCs, and our lenders have also withdrawn working capital support,” he said. letter added.

Adani said that during the supply suspension period, the company reserves the right to recover capacity payments under section 13.2(1) of the PPA.

Adani has been pressuring the caretaker government to pay dues since it took power. Gautam Adani, Chairman of the Adani Group, has also written to Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus.