The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) has approved nine projects worth Tk 2,665.21 crore including a project for installing smart power prepayment meters to ensure revenue collection and also to reduce system loss.
The approval came from the Ecnec meeting presided over by Ecnec Chairperson and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina held at the NEC Conference Room in the city’s Sher-e-Bangla Nagar area.
Ministers, state ministers, Planning Commission members and secretaries concerned attended the meeting.
Briefing reporters after the meeting, Planning Minister MA Mannan said, “Today, the Ecnec meeting has approved a total of nine projects involving Tk 2,665.21 crore.”
State Minister for Planning Dr Shamsul Alam was also present at the briefing.
Of the approved nine projects, seven are new while the rest are revised projects.
Mannan said that the Northern Electricity Supply Company Limited (NESCO) under the Power Division of the Power and Mineral Resources Ministry will implement the smart pre-payment metering project by June 2024.
The project will be implemented in 33 upazilas under some 14 districts of Rajshahi and Rangpur Divisions and in two city corporation areas.
The main objectives of the project is to ensure cent percent revenue collection, reducing system loss, introducing real time billing system and eradicating over billing and under billing, ensuring online bill access and payments by clients, implementation of load control management.
The main project operations include installation of some 11,13,608 single phase and 86,392 three phases smart meters, installation of some 13,619 data concentrator units, setting up of some 3 head-end system and 70 hand held units, preparing data management system and billing softwares for 12 lakh meters.
Once the project is implemented, digitization of power distribution system and improved client services would be ensured in the project areas.
The other projects approved in the meeting are -- Vision 2041: Adding small savings in poverty alleviation with Tk 149 crore, Establishment of Darul Arkam Ibtedia Madrasa and its operations with Tk 199.06 crore, Rehabilitation of 50 BG and 50 MG passenger carriages for the western zone of Bangladesh Railway with Tk 138.47 crore,
Construction of Dhaka-Ashulia Elevated Expressway, 1st revised, with an additional cost of Tk 651.72 crore, Infrastructural development of Pirganj, Haragach and Badarganj Pourashavas under Rangpur with Tk 87.60 crore, Establishment of BNS Sher-e-Bangla in Patuakhali, 1st revised with an additional cost of Tk 196.73 crore, South Asian Sub-regional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) Integrated Trade Facilitation Sector Development Project: Bangladesh Land Port Authority (BLPA) Part with Tk 217 crore and South Asian Sub-regional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) Integrated Trade Facilitation Sector Development Project with Tk 313 crore.