Silting in the Rabnabad channel has reduced its depth to about 6.5 metres from a designed 10.5 metres, blocking large vessels from Payra port, The Business Standard reported on 20 January 2026.
Only 17 foreign mother vessels called at Payra in the first half of FY2025-26, compared with 111 in FY23, 123 in FY24 and 85 in FY25. More than Tk6,500 crore was spent on capital dredging, yet the channel silted again within about a year, while a maintenance dredging proposal of similar size had been stuck for nearly a year.
Coal ships for the Payra thermal power plant and RNPL now unload at Chattogram’s outer anchorage and are lightered to Payra; an engineer at the plant told the newspaper this had raised generation costs by about Tk0.70 per unit. Payra Port Authority member Mohammad Jamal Uddin Chowdhury said maintenance dredging approval “didn’t come”. The authority has proposed an annual Tk700 crore levy on the two power plants to fund dredging.
Source
- The Business Standard: “Silt chokes Payra Port, forcing vessels to Chattogram” (20 January 2026)
File photo: coal arriving at the Payra thermal power plant jetty, March 2022. Photo: Press Information Department / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
This article is a summary prepared by Maritime News BD from the report(s) listed above; it was not independently reported by Maritime News BD.
