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A total of 0.14 million (1.40 lakh) more rural households will be brought under the solar power system by the Infrastructure Development Company Ltd (IDCOL), a financing company under the ministry of finance, in all the 64 districts of the country by the year 2009, reports BSS.
Executive Director of IDCOL M Fouzul Kabir told the news agency that initially the IDCOL had a target of financing 50,000 solar power household systems (SHSs) in a five and half year period from January 2003 to June 2008 with financial assistance from the World Bank (WB) and Global Environment facility.
In this regard, recently a financial agreement was signed among the Economic Relation Division (ERD), IDCOL and KfW.
Under the agreement, KfW will provide nearly $18.5 million as grant for implementing the SHSs project, sources said.
It has already successfully achieved its target in September 2005, three years ahead of the scheduled completion.
Fouzul said: "Now we have received the target of financing 140,000 SHSs by the year 2009 from the government with joint financial assistance from the WB, GTZ and KfW of Germany."
"To achieve the government target to provide electricity to all by 2020, solar electrification may act as a supplement or alternative to grid system expansion,"
IDCOL is implementing the solar electrification programme in remote areas far from the power grid at a total cost of Tk 2.30 billion (230 crore) with 14 NGOs and Micro Finance Institutions (MFI) including BRAC Foundation and Grameen Shakti.
To enjoy the credit facility, a customer has to pay a minimum 10 per cent of total cost of a system as down payment, rest of the amount can be paid by installment within two to five years.
At present, a total of 15 million families do not have the electricity facility in the country. Rural Electrification Board (REB) provides half a million new connections every year, REB sources said.
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