Rampal power plant not related to Norway fund Nasrul tells JP

State minister for power, energy and mineral resource Nasrul Hamid said in parliament on Sunday that Norway’s sovereign wealth fund’s exclusion of Bharat Heavy Electricals from its investment portfolio had nothing to do with Rampal power plant.
Nasrul Hamid, while replying to a supplementary question of Jatiya Party lawmaker Fakhrul Imam, also termed ‘wrong’ Greenpeace concern about premature deaths due to the power plant.
‘Norway’s sovereign wealth fund’s exclusion of Bharat Heavy Electricals from its investment portfolio has no relation with Rampal power plant,’ Nasrul Hamid said.
Bangladesh India Friendship Power Company was working to implement Rampal power plant with fund from Exim Bank; it was not taking fund from Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, he reiterated.
Norway’s wealth fund excluded Bharat Heavy Electricals from its investment portfolio because of concerns over the environmental impacts of a plant the Indian company was building, the Norwegian central bank said on Friday.
BHEL, most of which is owned by the Indian government, was excluded from the Norwegian fund’s portfolio because of ‘the risk of severe environmental damage’ resulting from the building of a coal-fired power plant close to the Sunderbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest, in Bangladesh.
Nasrul Hamid rejected Greenpeace coal and air pollution specialist Lauri Myllyvirta’s claims that Rampal power plant near at the Sunderbans could drastically worsen air pollution and cause approximately 6,000 premature deaths in its lifetime.
The state minister claimed there was no such possibility of such premature deaths due to Rampal power plant.

 

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