Access to electricity rises to 90pc: BPDB

Some 90 percent people in Bangladesh have come under the electricity network, way higher than 47 percent nine years ago, said Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) yesterday.

In a statement, the state-run agency said the number of power plants went up to 121 now from 27 in 2009.

The highest amount of power generated in 2009 was 3,268 megawatt whereas it rose to a record high of 11,059MW recently.

The number of consumers went up by more than two times to 2.99 crore.

“Overall, 90 percent of the population has access to electricity now,” said BPDB.

The agency said the government has given utmost importance to the power sector.

System loss went down to 12.2 percent now from 16.9 percent in 2009.

“The budget implementation capacity of the power sector has increased significantly in the last nine years,” said BPDB.

The sector has been able to implement the full revised ADP before the fiscal year came to an end in June, according to the statement.

In fact, the power division was one of the top achievers that managed to expend higher than the average amount of allocation in the just concluded fiscal year.

The allocation for the sector from the annual development programme rose from Tk 2,677 crore in 2009 to Tk 26,292 crore in the current fiscal year.

The government plans to generate 24,000MW of electricity by 2021.