Business Desk :
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Bangladesh on Tuesday signed agreements for $200 million additional loans, including $130 million concessional loan, to improve access to efficient and reliable electricity supply in rural areas in Bangladesh.
The additional loans will scale up the ongoing $616 million Bangladesh Power System Enhancement and Efficiency Improvement Project, which ADB approved in 2017, according to an ADB release.
Fatima Yasmin, Secretary, Economic Relations Division (ERD), and Manmohan Parkash, Country Director, ADB, remotely signed the loan agreements on behalf of Bangladesh and ADB respectively.
Md Khayrul Hasan, Member (Finance), Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board (BREB), the implementing agency of the project, signed the project agreement.
The additional ADB assistance will finance the installation of an additional 990 kilometres (km) of 33 kilovolt (kV) and 3,000 km of 11 kV below distribution lines and associated facilities, including 51 units of 33 kV/11 kV substations in rural areas in Khulna division. This will result in increasing electricity access to 150,000 rural households.
