The World Bank on Wednesday approved $500 million in loans to Bangladesh for expanding, modernizing, and sustainably transforming the country's electricity distribution system. Besides loans, which could be paid in 30 years, the global lender also offered a $ 15 million grant for clean energy technology.  In 2009, Bangladesh initiated one of the world’s most ambitious rural electrification programs, providing 90 million access to power. With this initiative backed by the World Bank, the country would focus on delivering a reliable electricity supply and support the energy transition. 

“With the fund, improved electricity services would be delivered to about 40 million people in Dhaka and Mymensingh divisions under the ‘Electricity Distribution Modernisation Programme’, the World Bank said in a statement released on Wednesday.

Under the program, the government would upgrade and construct more than 31,000 km of distribution lines, 157 distribution substations, and related infrastructure, and incorporate measures to increase climate resilience of network infrastructure in 25 rural electric cooperatives (Palli Bidyut Samities) in the country.

Furthermore, new and advanced technologies would be used to modernize and transform the electricity system, the World Bank said. 

In the last decade, power generation increased by 300 percent and covered almost 99 percent of households, but the up-gradation of the transmission infrastructure lacked for long. “The electricity distribution network could not keep pace with the remarkable increase in electricity generation," World Bank’s country-director Dandan Chen said. 

He further added the program would “transform and ensure the climate resilience of the distribution network”, which is the backbone of a secure and reliable power system.

(SAM)