Renewable energy for 3m families: PM

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina

Emphasising the government’s increasing importance on renewable energy, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today said the target has been fixed to bring three million more families under renewable solar energy system through Infrastructure Development Company Limited (IDCOL) in the next three years.

“We’ve fixed target to provide solar energy facility to three million more families in the next three years through IDCOL,” she said while inaugurating the celebration programme, of reaching the landmark of installing three million solar home systems, at a city hotel.

Hasina said there is huge potential of solar based irrigation pumps in the country. At present, the number of diesel run irrigation pumps in the country is 14 lakh. “For these, we’ve to import huge quantity of diesel spending valuable foreign exchange.”

Besides, she said, to run the 150,000 electricity-run irrigation pumps the power grid has to bear immense pressure. “If a portion of these pumps can be put under the solar based irrigation system, the import of diesel will decrease significantly and the pressure on the national grid will lessen.”

Finance Minister AMA Muhith, PM's adviser for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Affairs Dr Towfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid, World Bank Country Director Johaness CM Zutt and IDCOL executive director and CEO Mahmood Malik, also spoke at the programme, chaired by IDCOL chairman and ERD secretary Mohammad Mejbahuddin.

IDCOL was established on May 14, 1997 by the then Awami League government. The Company was licensed by the Bangladesh Bank as a non-bank financial institution (NBFI) on January 5, 1998.

Since its inception, IDCOL is playing a major role in bridging the financing gap for developing medium to large-scale infrastructure and renewable energy projects in Bangladesh. The company now stands as the market leader in private sector energy and infrastructure financing in Bangladesh.

IDCOL is managed by an eight-member independent Board of Directors comprising four senior government officials, three representatives from the private sector, and a full time Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer.

It has a small and multi-skilled work force comprising financial and market analysts, engineers, lawyers, IT experts, accountants and environmental and social safeguard specialists. IDCOL's stakeholders include the government, private sector, NGOs, multilateral and bilateral institutions, academics and the people of Bangladesh at large.