The government has decided to make power connectivity available in economic zones within seven days considering the demand of electricity in industrial areas, sources at Power Division said.
Power Division Additional Secretary Maksuda Begum said, “It’s not a difficult task to install power connectivity within seven days if all necessary papers are found okay.”
Power Division has ordered the distribution companies to comply with it, said the senior officials.
In line with Power Division’s instructions, distribution companies are required maximum 28 days to install an electricity line to an industry establishment. It now reduced to seven days for Export Processing Zone (EPZ) area.
According to Power Division sources, 330 industry owners applied for power connectivity across the country in April with 134 getting the services within 28 days, leaving the rest 177 applications.
Besides, industrialization of these EPZs will create a demand of 3,000 megawatt electricity – 2,400mw for 31 government EPZs and 527mw for private EPZs.
21 EPZs are now in operation across the country.
Power Davison has taken special incentives to make connections easier in EPZs, the sources said.
Now, the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh Limited (PCGB) is building 22 132/33KV sub-stations to supply electricity to 42 EPZs. The PCGB is also upgrading power generation capacity of its 10 running sub-stations.
A recent meeting of Power Division took the decisions, followed by issuing order to the Bangladesh Export Zones Authority (BEZA).
As most of the economic zones are located under the Rural Electrification Area (REB) area, REB plans to supply electricity in three phases. Preliminary connections were installed in some areas for land development and building infrastructural facilities.
So far, infrastructure of 42 EPZs has been completed over the past two years with construction of industry establishments underway.
The Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority expects these EPZs will be fully industrialized by 2025.