The records of Power Development Board (PDB) show that the Tk 360 crore plant tripped 39 times between March and September during its test operation and the remaining 36 times after Prime Minister Khaleda Zia inaugurated it on September 3 last year. The power unit tripped within hours of the launching of its commercial operation by the premier.

PDB experts say, between June 22, 2005 and March 11, 2006, the Tongi plant remained shut for a staggering 2026 hours. In monetary value, PDB incurred a loss of Tk 34.03 crore by not being able to sell power from the plant during this period.

Although the low-quality work of Harbin has surpassed the ill reputation of another Chinese company CMEC that built the two 210 mw Raozan plants during the previous BNP regime, Harbin has been recently awarded the contracts for the Fenchuganj 90 MW and Chandpur 150 MW power plant projects bending rules and regulations.

In the case of the Tongi plant -- which engineers now term as a 'junk' -- roughly two-third of its shut-downs were caused by poor machinery installed by Harbin.

Of all the sub-standard equipment installed by the company -- PDB has singled out two inappropriate gas booster compressors (GBC) as the major cause of the problem. But the company would not change these faulty machinery -- neither would PDB penalise the company.

Rather, Harbin and its powerful business lobby, with help from a section of unscrupulous PDB officials, are killing time to end the guarantee period through various means.

The plant is currently undergoing a two-year guarantee period -- meaning, Harbin is subject to penalty if it is found to be responsible for the plant's faults.

"Its operation and maintenance has become impossible due to Harbin's non-compliance with the contract and its non-cooperation with PDB," quipped a source.

The source explained how PDB ended up having a junk for a power plant. "During the pre-reward negotiation, Harbin agreed to supply two GBCs with capacity of 39,700 Nncube (a kind of gas unit) each, manufactured by Man Turbo or GE of Germany or USA or France. But soon afterwards, during the pre-contract negotiation, the company made PDB agree to accept GBCs from 'any internationally reputed organisation'.

In reality Harbin supplied two Chinese-made GBCs of 36,000 Nncube capacity each. Meanwhile the company took a seven-member PDB Inspection Team to China from October 22 - November 1, 2003 led by the then Member (Generation) Dr MAK Azad. The team approved the low capacity GBC machines and submitted its report to PDB on November 8, 2003.

But the PDB Board in its meeting on November 29, 2004 opined that the sub-standard GBCs should have been rejected and the inspection team should not have taken such a lenient position with the defaulting company Harbin. The board in a further meeting on March 21, 2005 expressed its dissatisfaction with the inspection committee for submitting an incomplete and unprofessional report on the low quality Chinese-made GBCs without even conducting performance tests on those.

Interestingly the leader of the inspection team, Dr MAK Azad, refrained from signing the report and a local consultant Engineer Kazi Kamaluddin Ahmed of the consulting firm ECBL signed the report along with other members of the team, which endorsed acceptance of the faulty machines.

On investigation, PDB's board discovered that in violation of the agreement reached during pre-contract negotiations, Harbin managed to omit any mention of specific capacity of the GBCs in the contract document signed between PDB and Harbin and rather stated, "Each gas handling unit shall have guaranteed capacity which matches or exceeds the gas turbine need under all load operating conditions at the site."

A PDB committee completed performance tests on the GBCs on May 10, 2005 and revealed that the lower powered GBCs supplied in violation of the contract cannot ensure necessary supply of gas as required by the site condition and mode of operation of the Tongi Plant. The GBCs have been responsible for the frequent tripping of the plant. The committee held Harbin responsible for not supplying the GBCs as per contract and recommended that necessary action be taken against it for violation of contractual obligations.

Then on June 6, the PDB Board decided to ask Harbin to replace the GBCs with better and higher quality ones as stipulated in the contract and also served show cause notices to the members of PDB's inspection team.

"But till this day, PDB took no action against the inspection committee that went to China and approved Harbin's inferior quality GBCs. Rather one of the members of the committee, Naimul Hossain, deputy director of Design-1, continues to be part of the Technical Evaluation Committee for power plant projects including the Fenchuganj 90 MW and Chandpur 150 MW plants, the contracts for both of which have been awarded to Harbin," said a competent source.

It takes four hours to start the Tongi GBCs. Of the two GBCs, if one trips, the other does not start automatically as it should. It takes about two hours for the second one to get started.

It is the normal practice for any engineering procurement commissioning (EPC) contractor to supply spares for GBCs free of cost, but Harbin made a separate list of spares for the GBCs and is additionally charging PDB for those.

"Harbin cheated PDB of about Taka 20 crore through not supplying the GBCs of 39,700 Nncube capacity as agreed earlier," the source added.

The Tongi plant's project director in a letter on August 9, 2005 to Harbin communicated a 'list of defects/ deficiencies/ lapses' of the project work and sought a written commitment from Harbin for rectification of the said lapses before any Provisional Acceptance Certificate could be issued by PDB.

On PDB's list there are more than 25 such deficiencies. In reply, Harbin committed to undertake the said repairs through its letter dated August 24, 2005. On the same day, PDB issued Harbin the provisional acceptance certificate. Ever since, Harbin has done little to address the problems for which the plant keeps on tripping.

Among other lapses, Harbin supplied only one set of 115 volt battery instead of two sets of 220 volt batteries. A lathe machine has been installed but till this day it has not been made operational while Harbin has taken the payment for it without testing its operational performance. Poor quality of air filters is also a contributing factor to frequent tripping of the plant.

Auxiliary materials supplied by Harbin are also of poor quality. The auxiliary parts are malfunctioning for unknown reasons and despite repeated requests from PDB, Harbin is not cooperating in identifying the causes for such malfunctioning as per requirements of the warranty clause.

Even recently, through a letter dated March 6, 2006 the project director requested Harbin to submit a report explaining the causes of frequent tripping. The project director in another letter dated March 8, 2006 asked Harbin to make the plant operative. All these communications from PDB continues to go unheeded by Harbin.