Bangladesh plans to buy electricity from a Chinese waste-to-energy project at Tk 25 per unit amid a power crisis and objections to India’s cross-border charge.
The Tarique Rahman-led government is preparing to pay a Chinese company Tk 25 per unit for electricity generated from waste, a tariff about 127% higher than the roughly Tk 11 per unit Bangladesh paid for electricity from Indian suppliers in Financial Year 2025-26.
The development comes days after Dhaka objected to India’s proposed Rs 0.01-per-unit charge for settling cross-border electricity transactions. India later reduced the proposed charge by half to Rs 0.005 per unit.
According to broadcaster India Today, which first reported the development, the Chinese project at Dhaka’s Aminbazar landfill will have a planned capacity of 42 Mega Watt (MW). The project is primarily aimed at tackling the city’s mounting garbage problem and is not a replacement for India’s much larger electricity supplies to Bangladesh.
The decision, however, comes at a sensitive moment as Bangladesh battles severe power shortages, gas supply disruptions and prolonged blackouts, with protests over electricity outages also erupting on the streets.
The proposed Chinese tariff is about 127% higher than the roughly Tk 11 per unit Bangladesh paid for electricity from Indian suppliers in FY 2025-26.
One Taka is valued at 0.77 Indian Rupees and the project in Dhaka’s Aminbazar is not a replacement for India’s much larger electricity supplies to Bangladesh.
Dhaka is seeking to turn an environmental liability, which is its growing mountains of urban waste, into electricity and other useful products. Yet the Tk 25 tariff has put a fresh spotlight on the cost of Bangladesh’s power strategy at a time when every additional unit of electricity and every additional cost is under scrutiny.
India’s Rs 0.01 Charge Vs China’s Tk 25
The contrast became particularly striking after Bangladesh objected to India’s proposed Settlement Nodal Agency (SNA) charge for cross-border electricity transactions.
On August 24, India proposed an SNA charge of Rs 0.005 per unit on electricity supplied to Bangladesh. The charge followed a decision by India’s Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) to introduce SNA charges for cross-border power trade.
The initial proposal had been Rs 0.01 per unit, but the charge was subsequently reduced by half after the Bangladesh Power Development Board raised the issue.
The SNA charge is not the price of electricity itself. It is meant to cover services connected with the movement and settlement of cross-border power, including scheduling, metering, energy accounting and grid operations. Officials have indicated that the additional cost would be relatively small.
That makes Dhaka’s willingness to pay Tk 25 per unit for the Aminbazar waste-to-energy project stand out even more.
The two charges are not directly comparable. India’s SNA fee is an additional transaction and grid-related charge, whereas Tk 25 is the proposed tariff for electricity generated by a waste-to-energy plant, according to the reports cited above.
Bangladesh Is Paying More For Waste-To-Power
According to Bangladesh’s The Daily Star, the average price of imported electricity more than doubled between FY21 and FY25, rising from Tk 5.82 per unit to Tk 11.72 per unit.
Against that backdrop, the proposed Aminbazar tariff of Tk 25 per unit is more than twice the FY25 average price of imported electricity.
But the Aminbazar project is not comparable in scale to Bangladesh’s electricity imports from India.
In FY25, electricity imported from India accounted for approximately 15.8% of Bangladesh’s total electricity purchase cost. Dhaka paid around Tk 19,225 crore for electricity imported from India that year, out of a total power purchase cost of about Tk 1,21,420 crore, according to The Daily Star.
The Chinese project, by contrast, would generate only 42MW. Its primary purpose is waste management, with electricity generation being one of its benefits.
Why Is Bangladesh Paying Tk 25 For Chinese Electricity?
The proposed deal involves electricity generated from waste at the Aminbazar landfill in Dhaka, which is managed by Dhaka North City Corporation.
Dhaka-based New Age reported on August 27 that the Bangladesh government will purchase electricity generated from waste at the landfill from a Chinese company at Tk 25 per unit.
State Minister for Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives Mir Shahe Alam said the project would have a generation capacity of 42MW and is expected to begin generation within 18 months.
Electricity generated at Aminbazar could be supplied to Bangladesh’s national grid by August or September 2028, according to the minister.