Jannatul Ferdousy
The government has decided to develop Chokoria-Moheshkhali two- lane road into six lanes for transportation of heavy equipment required for building a coal-based power plant at Moheshkhali in Cox's Bazar.
The Secretary of the Power Division, Monowar Islam, wrote to Secretary of the Roads and Highways Department (RHD) M N A Siddiqui on December 29, 2014 in this connection, a Power Division official said.  
Under a master plan, a power generation hub is going to be set up at Moheshkahli, he said. "Therefore, to improve communication, roads need to be developed, otherwise we will face many problems in future," he added.
"For transportation of coal and heavy equipment to the plant premises we have taken the decision," the Secretary said.    
The Power Division Secretary requested the RHD for building intersection multilevel flyover so that heavy equipment could be carried easily.
A Power Division official said that the existing two-lane 52-km road from Chokoria to Moheshkhali is narrow and not fit for carrying a large quantity of coal and heavy equipment for the planned 1,2000MW power hub.  
Under the plan, 12000MW power will be generated at Moheshkhali, Matarbari in Cox's Bazar.  The government now will generate 4,800MW from four power plants. The plants will start generation by 2021-23.
A memorandum of understanding (MOU) with China was signed by PDB on April 29, 2014 to set up a 1200-MW power plant. The plant will go into generation in 2021.
The Coal Power Generation Company of Bangladesh (CPGCB), a government organization, is going to set up another 1200MW power plant at Moheshkhali.
The Power Development Board (PDB) signed a loan agreement with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) on July 16, 2014 involving Tk 3, 154, 26 crore.
Besides, evaluation of tender is going on for 1200MW imported coal-based power plant at Moheshkhali. The plant is supposed to go into to generation by 2022, said the PDB official.
Agreement for another plant of 1200MW on the same campus was signed on September 22, 2014 with a Malaysia- based TNT-PTB which will start generation by 2023.