“We are trying to meet the gap by running other plants,” Rezaul Karim, chairman of the state-run Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB), told AFP on Sunday.

Adani’s coal-fired Godda plant in India’s Jharkhand state – a US$2 billion project including transmission lines that opened last year – usually supplies 7-10% of Bangladesh’s baseload power demand of 13GW.

However, Adani had warned Dhaka in September to settle its bills, which had surged to around US$850 million.

At the time, Adani called it an “unsustainable situation, where we are meeting not only our supply commitments but also those to our lenders and suppliers, despite rising receivables”.

There was no immediate comment from Adani on Sunday.

Bangladesh, a nation of some 170 million people, is struggling to find dollars to make the payments.

Its new leaders are focused on the political fallout of a student-led revolution in August that toppled autocratic ex-leader and close Indian ally Sheikh Hasina.

“We are discussing the issue with them (Adani), and informed them that it is not possible to make the total payment in a single month,” Karim added.

“We are trying to increase the payment size gradually”.

Karim said Bangladesh paid US$97 million to Adani in October, which was “higher than the previous three months’ payment”.

Demand is usually lower in November, when Bangladesh enters a relatively cooler period after months of blistering heat when consumers rely on energy-hungry air conditioners to keep cool.

On Friday, Adani’s Godda plant supplied 724MW, against the installed capacity of 1,496MW, with Bangladesh facing around 1,680MW of load shedding.

Bangladesh also imports 1,160MW from Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura.