Minister reiterates energy promise
The government has laid out a plan to free Bangladesh of the energy crisis by 2014 by producing adequate power, said State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Enamul Haque yesterday.
The government has set a target to produce 9,426 megawatts of electricity by 2015 in an effort to bring every citizen under electricity coverage.
"We are also planning to buy electricity from India, Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar," Haque said.
The minister was speaking at a roundtable on the power crisis at the CIRDAP auditorium in the city as the chief guest.
Former state minister for power, energy and mineral resources Iqbal Hasan Mahmood Tuku said many papers have been written for power sector development, but nearly all remained unimplemented.
"Many do not see electricity as a commodity like other basic goods. As a result, they do not want to pay for power consumption. We need strong research and development efforts for power development," he said.
As a discussant, Prof Ijaz Hossain of the Department of Chemical Engineering of BUET, suggested the government take up realistic power projects.
"We need to implement coal-based power plants by importing or extracting coal from local resources," Ijaz said.
Dr Hussain Mansur, chairman of Petrobangla, said he would be able to supply at least 80mmcfd of gas in next three months to be used for electricity production and industrial use.
"Petrobangla has been trying to develop alternative sources of primary energy over the last few years, as the reserve of natural gas has been waning quickly," Mansur said.
Mizanur Rahman, director (in charge) of System Planning of Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB), presented a keynote paper and Editor of the fortnight Energy and Power Magazine Mollah Amzad moderated the roundtable.
Khursheed Ul Islam, senior adviser for Sustainable Energy for Development (SED) of German Technical Cooperation GTZ, and ASM Seraj Uddullah, director engineering of Dhaka Power Distribution Company (DPDC), also spoke.
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