State-owned Northern Electricity Supply Company (NESCO) limited will install 5 lakh smart prepayment electric meters in northern districts of the country.
To this end, NESCO has signed an agreement with a JVC of Shenzhen Star Instrument, China and Oculin Tech BD. Limited on Wednesday at Bidyut Bhaban in the capital.
Prime Minister’s Energy Advisor Dr Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury attended the ceremony as the chief guest. He hopes the win-win situation will be created for both the smart meter marketing companies and the consumers.
The energy advisor urged the electricity distribution company to ensure users’ satisfaction. Otherwise all the initiatives of the government will be useless, he added.
‘We declared ‘Mujib Barsho’ as a service year. Our target is also to ensure 100 percent electricity coverage within this year,’ he said.
Among others, Power Secretary Sultan Ahmed, PDB Chairman Saeed Ahmed and Nesco Managing Director Zakiul Islam were present on the occasion.
Sayeed Abu Taher, Company secretary of NESCO, Shenzhen Star Instrument President Lau Chun Den and Sadab Sazzad of Oculin Tech BD signed the agreement on behalf of their respective sides.
Under the deal, the JVC of Shenzhen Star Instrument Co Ltd and Oculin Tech BD Ltd will supply and install the prepaid meters at a project cost of Tk 414.82 crore.
Of the 5 lakh smart cards, some 467,200 are single-phase smart prepaid meters while the remaining 32,800 are three-phase smart prepaid meters.
The project also include installation of 3,000 data concentrator units, one central data centre (CDC), one metre information centre, one disaster recovery centre (DRC) and 17 vending utility stations.
Official documents also reveal that of the total cost of the project, the government will fund Tk 400.69 crore while Nesco will spend Tk 14.12 crore from its own fund.
Officials said the main objective of the project is to collect revenue in advance, provide improved services to Nesco consumers, reduce the non-technical loss to the zero level, ease the demand side load management and check the misuse of electricity.
In first phase, the meters will be installed in the cities of Rajshahi, Chapainawabganj, Natore, Pabna Bogra, Dinajpur, Panchagarh, Thakurgaon, Rangpur and Nilphamari by October this year.
