Staff Reporter :By enhancing interconnection capacity of Bangladesh-India existing power grid, the government has taken initiative to import 500 megawatt (MW) electricity more from India by June 2018.”A project of Enhancing Capacity of Existing Bangladesh (Bheramara) – India (Bahorompur) Grid Interconnection (500MW) is under implementation,” State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid told newsmen.He said the government would construct HVDC station having capacity of 500-MW under the project, which would require two years, adding, that currently Bangladesh is importing 500-MW electricity from India and more initiatives underway.Tremendous success in power sector attained from doubling power generation capacity because of the visionary and undaunted leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina that pulled out the nation from the abyss of darkness caused by load shedding, Nasrul said. He said the government led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina enhanced the country’s power generation capacity to 14, 077 MW from 3,268 MW in 2009 with around 75 percent of the population having access to electricity.”The nation has witnessed a continued turnaround in recovering from chronic energy crisis as the government has already brought 75 per cent people under electricity coverage and sincere efforts and timely initiatives along with relentless monitoring helped a lot to get rid of load- shedding,” Nasrul said.He said, “Present government has set a target to generate 24,000-MW electricity by 2021, and 40,000 MW by 2030 aimed at bringing all the citizens of the country under electricity service.”According to a ministry official, the government has a plan for achieving energy efficiency in the near future by implementing all mega projects. However, load shedding has now gone into oblivion. Load shedding was almost an everyday phenomenon few years ago to the utter sufferings of all people across the country, but yesterday electricity failure is seldom seen anywhere in both urban and rural areas.The government has already provided power connection to around 3 crore people through expanding 42,000 kms new line and capacity enhancement by 1,798 megawatt (MW) in the last two years (2014 to 2015), he said.The government has set a target to generate 24,000 MW electricity by using 53 per cent coal as primary energy source within the Vision 2021. With this end in view, he said, the government increased the number of power plants, transmission lines and distribution lines for rapid economic growth to help Bangladesh become a middle income country by 2021. Some 77 power plants have been constructed with generation capacity of 6,306 MW from 2009 to 2015 and 6,306 MW electricity was added to the national grid during the period. Besides, the government signed agreements to construct 77 power plants with capacity of 11,408 MW both in public and private sectors, of which 52 plants with capacity of 5,287 MW joined operational activities, while the rest 25 plants having capacity of 6,082 MW are under construction.
