Lighting the rural Bangladesh

Also available in Bangla

The World Bank is supporting the Government of Bangladesh’s effort to increase access to electricity of rural people through the Rural Electrification and Renewable Energy Development (RERED) Project.  From January 2003, this project has so far connected 285,981 new consumers in rural areas through 45 Pally Bidyut Samities (PBS) of the Rural Electrification Board (REB) and has constructed 7,369 km of new electricity distribution lines in 2,606 new villages.

This project is also supporting government’s endeavor of separating the service boundaries between different power utilities.  This initiative of the government has significantly reduced GOB’s investment cost by reducing duplication of investment in the same area by multiple utilities.  REB has improved the operating efficiency of these transferred lines through proper renovation measures.   For many of the transferred lines, PBSs changed non-standard lines with standard lines, replaced low tension lines with high tension lines and provided meters to each consumer.  This has improved bill collection and reduced system loss, improving the whole power sector of Bangladesh.  As of December 2005, REB renovated about 7,464 km of lines.

To provide electricity service to households, who are located far away from PBS electricity lines, and has very little probability to get electricity connection soon, Government has undertaken a renewable energy scheme.  Through REB and the Infrastructure Development Company Ltd (IDCOL), this project is promoting Solar Home Systems (SHS).  A SHS is a devise which uses a Solar PV Panel to generate electricity using sun-light, this electricity is then used to charge a battery.  Using this battery, a household can operate 3 to 4 lights and one black and white TV for at least 4 hours a day.  This has become very popular in rural areas where people are eager to have electricity but were not getting access only due to their location.  Now they have an option to get SHS either from REB or from the Partner Organizations of IDCOL.  As of February 2006, IDCOL has installed about 65,000 SHS in rural Bangladesh. 

This project will close in June 2008.  The project has disbursed about US$ 99 million and has about US$ 120 million undisbursed.  WB expects that the Government will be able utilize the undisbursed US$ 120 million to meet the project objective and complete the project satisfactorily before its closing date.
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Contacts:
Rezwan-ul-Alam (8802) 815-9015, Ext 4242,   E-mail:  salam3@worldbank.org
for more information on the World Bank in Bangladesh, please visit :
www.worldbank.org.bd & www.worldbank.org