Dhaka: Voicing her firm optimism to provide electricity to all households by 2021, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday urged all to make efficient use of power, gas and water at their homes and workplaces to prevent the misuse of the valuable resources.

‘We often misuse electricity and I want people from all classes, including guardians, teachers and students of schools, colleges, universities as well as in offices and courts, to come forward to ensure its efficient use,’ she said.

The prime minister was addressing the inaugural function of the National Power and Energy Week-2016 held at Bashundhara International Convention City.

Putting utmost importance to the proper use of electricity and gas, she said that everyone should personally switch off the power connections at their homes and workplaces after completing their works while the temperature of the air conditioners should be kept at 24-25 degree Celsius which is a tolerable level.

Hasina said she also switches off power connections by herself before leaving her rooms without depending on others. ‘It costs huge money in generating power and gas. So, we need to remain cautious so that there is no misuse of it.’

Highlighting various steps taken by her government in the power and energy sector over the last eight years, she said massive programmes have been undertaken to construct power transmission and distribution lines as some 1,902 kilometres of transmission lines and 97,000 kilometres of new distribution lines have been constructed during the period.

Hasina said the production of power and gas is costly on one hand and it is time-consuming one on the other. ‘It’s my belief the National Power and Energy Week would encourage people to check the misuse of power and energy and thus maintain austerity in its use.’

The Prime minister said her government has been trying to generate power from renewable energy in a bid to ensure energy security for future as well as resisting global warming.

She said a target has been set to raise the power generation from renewable energy to 5 percent by 2021 and to 10 percent by 2030 from renewable energy out of the overall power generation as per the Renewable Energy Policy. ‘To materialise this goal, a plan has been taken to generate some 3,100 MW of power by 2021 based on renewable energy.

Laying emphasis on bilateral and international cooperation, she said her government has signed a number of agreements over the last eight years as around 600 MW of power is being imported from India under the Bangladesh-India cooperation agreement while steps have been taken to import 500 MW of more power. Alongside this, efforts are on to import hydropower from Nepal and Bhutan as well as power and gas from Myanmar.

Due to the relentless efforts of the government, the current per capita power generation capacity has been raised to 407 kilowatt hour from 220 kilowatt hour in 2009.

Mentioning that initiative has been taken to augment power generation through re-powering the old power plants, she said, ‘The system loss in power distribution has now been reduced to 10.96 percent which was 15.67 percent in the past,’

She said the electricity production was increased to 15,000 MW over the last eight years through setting up 80 power plants. The total amount of transmission line is now 9,893 circuit kilometre, while the amount of distribution line is 3.60 lakh kilometre, she said.

The Prime minister said the number of beneficiaries who got electricity was 47 percent in 2009. But, the number was raised to 78 percent over the last 8 years by providing 1.14 lakh new connections, she said.

She said her government has been implementing a masterplan to generate 24,000 MW electricity by 2021; 40,000 MW by 2030 and 60,000 MW by 2041 under a long term plan.

She said eight coal-fired mega power plant projects having 9,840 MW capacity are under implementation. ‘Besides, we’ve signed an agreement with Russia to build the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant, through which generating 2200 MW would be possible by 2024,’ she said reiterating that her government has also a plan to set up another nuclear power plant in the country’s southern region.

The Prime minister said three gas fields were discovered since 2009.  As a result, she said, the daily average gas production was increased to 2,740 million cubic feet from 1,744 mcft.

Nepalese Energy Minister Janandar Sharma addressed the programme as a special guest with State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid Bipu in the chair. Parliamentary Standing Committee chairman of the Ministry Tajul Islam also spoke on the occasion.

Energy and Mineral Resources Division Secretary Nazimuddin Chowdhury and Power Division Secretary Monowar Islam gave the address of welcome. A audio-visual documentary on power and energy was also screened at the function.

Earlier, the prime minister distributed awards among the winners in 10 categories of the power sector and 6 categories in the energy sector. Later, she inaugurated the Power and Energy Fair-2016.