GAIBANDHA, June 19: Gaibandha Palli Bidyut Samity (GPBS) under Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board (BREB) is playing significant role in providing electricity connections to rural community to change their socio-economic condition.
According to sources, GPBS was established on December 2, 1999 taking Sadar, Shaghata, Fulchhari, Palashbari and Gobindaganj upazilas out of the seven upazilas of the district and started its electricity supply on March 1, 2000.
Till 2008, the samity gave electricity connections to 44,971 rural establishments including 35,384 households, 4,833 commercial hubs and 826 industrial houses through constructing 1,726 km lines.
In 2009, after assuming to power, the grand alliance Awami League (AL) government led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina adopted a programme 'Ghore Ghore Bidyut' and 'Cent Per cent Electrification' project.
Accordingly, the huge development activities including line construction and transformer installation were launched and implemented by the GPBS under the schemes in the upazilas of the district like other parts of the country.
Till April, 2019 the samity provided a total of 2,80,894 electricity connections to the households, commercial hubs, industrial houses and irrigation purposes, said Deputy General Manager of the Samity M Harun-or-Rashid.
The connections were provided to 2,61,327 households, 9,591 commercial hubs, 5,791 irrigation purposes, and1,153 small, middle and heavy industrial houses of the upazilas, he briefed.
In 2009, the demand of the electricity in the upazilas of the district was 11 MW, and in 2019, the demand here rose to 48 MW; he said adding that the per head usage of electricity rose to 407 units from 220.
By this time, Sadar, Shaghata and Fulchhari upazilas and Palahbari have been brought under 100 pe rcent electrification coverage and Gobindaganj Upazila would be brought under cent per cent coverage by September, 2019, said Assistant General Manager (AGM) M Shahidur Rahman Khan.
The rural people are constructing the houses with bricks at larger scale and enjoying the usage of refrigerator, TV, computer, laptop, mobile phone set and other electrical devices even air cooler like the town dwellers for getting electricity connection from the samity, he added.
At the intersections of the rural road a number of computer shops and other business establishments had been built; as a result, the rural people were getting internet-related services like chatting, video calling and sending documents through e-mail from there.
The rural students are also receiving lessons through multimedia projectors installed in the class rooms of their respective academic institutions for providing electricity connection there, said Ratan Kumar Barman, head-teacher of Khidir Sharif Al-Wahedi High School of Sadar Upazila.
Shipon Mahmud, a student of Barobaldia Village under Sadar Upazila, who reads in Haji Osman Goni Degree College said that they were in dark after evening and could not study properly for want of electricity earlier.
The scenario had been changed and the rural students were getting chance to study in the light of the electricity at night and also using the fans and other electronic devices all day long, he also said.
While talking to the Daily Observer, General Manager of GPBS M Pana Ullah said that a revolution had been created in agriculture, education, health, information and communication sectors side by side with creating employment in rural areas here for bringing them under power network by the samity.
The electricity connections were being given to the new consumers without any hassle and harassment through spot metering system following short time, low cost and few visit, he concluded.
