B.D. Rahmatullah, Nancy Norris, and John Richards
A New Mandate for the Rural Electrification Board: Area-Based Planning Initiatives to Relieve Power
Shortages.
A lack of reliable electrical power is severely impeding
Bangladesh economic development. Seventy-eight percent of
Bangladeshi firms cite poor electricity service as a "major" or "severe"
obstacle to expansion.
Successful reform requires building on a foundation of
administrative credibility. The most credible of the major agencies in
the power sector is the Rural Electrification Board (REB). Over the
last decade, it has doubled the number of customer
connections, and now distributes 40 percent of all power generated in
Bangladesh. The authors of this monograph recommend an expansion of the
REB mandate to enable the REB and its network of rural cooperatives (Palli Biddyut Samitee) to create generating capacity
independent of the national grid, capacity whose power would be distributed
on a priority basis to customers in the local participating
PBS.
