Power Development Board (PDB) has been implementing a mega project to ensure a safe and dependable power supply to meet increasing demand for electricity till 2025.
PDB sources said the four and half-year project styled “Power Distribution Management Development, Rajshahi Zone” is being implemented in Rajshahi City and 16 upazilas in eight districts under Rajshahi division.
The Tk 964.16 crore project will improve distribution system along with capacity enhancement of the distribution zone coupled with supplying power uninterruptedly, said Engineer Abdul Aziz, director of the project, PDB sources added.
Upon its successful implementation by December 2020, the mega scheme will meet the gradually mounting power demand and reduce system loss.
It will also help reducing existing load shedding caused by the prevailing power system weakness in the zone comprising 60 upazilas covering 16,493 square-kilometer areas with around 21.7 million people.
In the recent time, a large number of new rice mills, cold-storages, poultry farms and agro-based industries were established in the region.
Besides, big shopping malls, trade centres and large number of educational institutions are functioning. An export processing zone has been set in Pabna. These establishments have created a huge demand for power supply.
Engineer Aziz said the project has provision of installing seventeen 33/11 KV new substations and upgradation and renovation of existing 27 others. “We are constructing 1299-kilometer new distribution lines side by side with renovating 1714-kilometer existing lines,” he added.
He told BSS that construction of a number of picking power plants,
independent power plants and rental electricity centres is progressing fast in the region. Fifty-one percent of implementation works on the project was completed, he added.
As a whole, the project will enormously supplement the government vision of supplying power to all houses and establishments by 2021, Engineer Aziz expected, reports BSS from Rajshahi.
