BIFCPL awarded an EPC contract to Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) valued at over US$1.49 billion for setting up the Maitree Super Thermal Power Project (2X660MW).

[15] But the location of the plant, 14 kilometres from the Sundarbans, violates one of the basic preconditions which says such projects must be outside a 25-kilometer radius from the outer periphery of an ecologically sensitive area.

Environmentalists say these coal-carrying vehicles are not often covered as they scatter large amounts of fly ash, coal dust and sulphur, and other toxic chemicals are released throughout the life of the project.

[20] The predictions made by environment and ecology experts are that the plant will release toxic gases such as carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen and sulphur dioxide, thereby putting the surrounding areas and, most importantly, Sundarban at grave risk.

[21] According to a report published in New Age, in past few years the Indian central and state authorities which deal with environmental concerns in India denied the proposal of NTPC to set up a similar coal-fired thermal power plant at Gajmara in Gadarwara of Madhya Pradesh over a number of points.

[21] The government of Bangladesh rejects the allegations that the coal-based power plant would adversely affect the world's largest mangrove forest.

[22] Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, energy adviser of the Bangladeshi prime minister, said that the controversy over the power plant and its impact on the Sundarbans was "not based on facts."

The National Committee on Protection of Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, and Power-Port, environmentalist groups, bodies of the left-leaning parties and general people of Bangladesh vowed to resist the planned inauguration of the Rampal Power Plant scheduled on 22 October 2013.

[13] As of 30 June 2016, with construction yet to begin, UNESCO had scheduled a meeting for 11 July to decide whether to declare the Sundarbans a "World Heritage Site in Danger," its strongest possible signal to the two governments and to international lenders that the plant should not be built.

"[27] In a press conference in New Delhi, India, social and civil society activists from Narmada Bachao Andolan's National Alliance of People's Movements wrote an "open letter" to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 18 October 2016, appealing to him to withdraw support for the plant saying that it might cause irreparable damage to the Sundarbans in Bangladesh.

[28] On 18 January 2017 in the 47th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos of Switzerland, former Vice-President of the United States, Al Gore has urged Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina to stop building the coal powered plant close to the largest mangrove forest, Sundarbans.