Timeline of Events
January 29, 2012 – The joint venture between the National Thermal Power Company (NTPC) of India and the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) was agreed upon. This officially started the construction process and Bangladesh began reclaiming land in Rampal and dislocating some of its inhabitants in order to obtain the necessary area for the station.
September 24, 2013 – Thousands of Bangladeshis protest the power station by participating in the Long March 
from Dhaka to Rampal (approximately 400km). Even though people marched for various reasons, the two main reasons were that the agreement was unequal and more beneficial for India than Bangladesh, and that the power station would destroy the Sundarbans.
July 2016 – Bharat Heavy Electricals LTD (BHEL) was awarded the contract to build the plant after a long bidding process.
April 2017 – Construction officially began and is expected to take around three years to complete. The Rampal Power Station will be a coal-based thermal power plant with a capacity of 1,320MW of electricity.
Future Consequences
The biggest threat connected to the Rampal Power Station is its potentially disastrous effects on the Sundarbans Mangrove Forest. Since the station is only 14 kilometers from the Reserve Forest boundary, its daily processes will have a direct impact on the environmental well-being of the region. The station is located along the Passur River and will be reliant on it for cooling and for coal transportation. According to the official Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), 5,150 cubic meters of hot water will be discharged into the Passur River every hour, every day, for 25 years once the station is operational. This will hurt the delicate river ecosystem and decrease the biodiversity within in. Also, the extensive dredging and water-flow alterations much take place along the river in order to allow large coal-carrying vessels to navigate to Rampal. These vessels will further contaminate the water with oil and chemical waste.
Beyond the river, there will also be detrimental effects on the forest and its inhabitants due to air, odor, and sound pollution. The station will emit toxic gases including carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide on a regular basis. These gases will deteriorate the health of nearby inhabitants and decrease the productivity of farms and fisheries. On a regional scale, This will hurt the livelihoods of two million inhabitants and also decrease the biodiversity and the resilience of the forest. On a local scale, inhabitants were forced off their land and displaced by the government in order to acquire the 1,834 acres for the station.
Citizen Opposition
According to the guidelines of the Indian Environment and Forest Ministry, no company or government is permitted to set up any such power plant within a 25 km vicinity of any protect forest, which includes the Sundarbans. Before the Rampal Power Station was proposed, NTPC tried to build power plants near the Sundarbans but were unable to due to this guideline. However, NTPC was able to circumvent it by having a joint venture with BPDB and locating the station in Bangladesh. Many citizens initially opposed the station because they believed it was an inequitable deal and that Bangladesh would not obtain as many benefits as India. Eventually, the politically-based opposition connected with people who were worried about the potential environmental effects and created the Long Live Sundarban Movement.
This movement believes in the conservation and protection of the Sundarbans Mangrove Forest, and directly opposes the Rampal Power Station. Their most successful protest was a five day march, known as the Long March, in September, 2013 from Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, to Rampal, approximately 400km away. Other protests have included documentaries, art expositions, and general strikes in Dhaka. They believe that the are alternatives to coal power, but there are not alternatives to the Sundarbans.
