PC gives nod to Tk 54.4b rural power line project

FHM Humayan Kabir The Planning Commission (PC) has given green signal to the 'politically considered' rural electricity line expansion project, costing a total of Tk 54.40 billion, despite fund shortage of the government, officials said Wednesday. The PC officials said the Project Evaluation Committee (PEC) of the Commission in a meeting Wednesday recommended placing the project before the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) for endorsement. Earlier, the PC withheld the project's approval due to fund constraint and asked the project implementer - the state-owned Rural Electrification Board (REB) - to procure fund from foreign donors. "Since the government is facing fund shortage, we were unwilling to approve the project at this moment," a senior PC official told the FE. Besides, the REB is implementing seven such projects at a total cost of Tk 37.33 billion for installation of 0.175 million kilometres distribution lines to connect nearly 1.5 million consumers. It will take few more years to complete the projects, he added. The REB has undertaken the mega project costing Tk 54.40 billion to connect 1.8 million new consumers with electricity lines in rural areas. The entire fund of the project has been sought from the government's internal resources. "It is noting but a political project. The REB has taken it following pressure from the members of parliament (MPs) and political leaders," a Power Division official said. The PC official said the Commission refused to approve the proposed electricity line expansion project due to the government's fund constraint. Besides, the project implementer sought entire cost from the internal government resources. He said the PC faced pressure from different quarters for approving the much-talked-about Tk 54.40 billion project. "When we withheld approval of the REB project, state minister for energy and power Enamul Haque sent a DO (demo officio) letter to the planning minister seeking approval," the official added. In the DO letter, the state minister said the MPs were urging the REB to expand power distribution lines to the rural areas to connect more people with the national grid. He also said the government has already added nearly 2,000-megawatt (mw) of additional power to the national grid and the planned power generation will exceed the demand by 2013, so providing connection to more consumers can now be started. The PC official said: "We recommended placing the project before the ECNEC in the PEC meeting Wednesday following pressure from different quarters, but it will ultimately suffer from fund shortage." He also added that the government at this moment is not in a position to allocate Tk 54.40 billion fund from its internal resources for the country's highest costing electricity distribution project.