Bagmara PBS aims to connect 100,000 houses with electricity supply

RAJSHAHI, Sept 17: To realise the slogan 'Prodhan Montrir Udoyog, Ghorey Ghorey Biddut' (Prime Minister's Initiative- Electricity in every house), Bagmara Zonal office under Natore Palli Bidyut Samity-1 started its activity aiming to connect 100,000 houses of the upazila with electricity supply.

Already 96,000 houses have been connected with electric supply facility under the programme in Bagmara.

To make the programme successful, Bagmara PBS zonal office initiated a mobile electricity connection programme entitled, 'Alor Feriwala'(Hawker for light) in January this year with a target of bringing all houses (100,000) of the upazila under electric supply facility.

To gear up the activity of electricity connection, several teams of PBS are visiting every villages of the upazila with electric accessories and official forms and within five minutes of demand - filling and signing up the official forms and paying of electric connection fees - a house is being connected with electricity network.

Now over 96 per cent houses in the upazila are beingfter finding out those houses, the Alor Feriwala van with electric accessories including meter, electric wire, cut outs, switches and bulbs, visiting those houses and connecting those with electric supply facility instantly after filling up PBS forms and realising only connection fees from the house owner. In this way, people of marginal income groups were getting electricity connections at their houses without facing any harassment or extra fees.

The activities of 'Alor Feriwala' are continuing in all villages of 16 unions of two municipal areas of the upazila every day from morning till evening.

Concerned officials of 'Alor Feriwala' team informed, all accessories for connecting a house with electric supply are being carried on the van. For a new connection, the consumer is charged Tk 50 as connection fee and Tk 400 as deposit fee (Tk 800 for commercial connection).

Alor Feriwala team members were filling up the forms of PBS on the spot and also taking deposit of the money and within five minutes of filling up of the forms and deposit of money, the house is being connected with electricity supply. The PBS officials were also instantly fixing any problem related to electricity connection in the area they were visiting.

On September 16, Sultan Uddin, DGM of Bagmara zonal office under Natore PBS-1 held meeting with the officials and employees of PBS and enquired of the progress of 'Alor Feriwala' programme.

The meeting was attended, among others, by SM Dhaokat Hossain Nannu, former President of PBS, Natore-1, Shariful Islam, EC, Bagmara zonal office, Joyne Uddin, Junior Engineer, Akran Hossain, Service Coordinator, Uttam Kumar Seal, Line Man, Ismael Hossain, Sujon Kumar Roy and SG Nurul Islam.

Sources said, the activities of 'Alor Feriwala' mobile van programme was inaugurated by Engineer Enamul Haque, Member of Parliament of Rajshahi-4 (Bagmara) constituency in January this year.

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