Prime minister Sheikh Hasina switched on the first of two new power plants near the capital Dhaka adding 120 megawatts to the national grid as Bangladesh struggles to ease chronic shortages of power.
Each costing $163 million, including $113 million from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the plants have been built by India's Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, officials said.
"We have raised power generation by 1,029 MW to 4,296 MW within a year of our tenure," Hasina said, against the current daily demand of 5,500 MW. Hasina took office in January 2009 following a massive election win and promised to address the issue of power generation with top priority.
"To meet up this huge gap we will produce another 1,000 MW of electricity by the end of this year," she said on Sunday.
"Bangladesh needs more than $7 billion in foreign investment to boost its electricity generation," said Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, energy and power adviser to the prime minister.
The prime minister also said her government wanted to raise power production at 7,000 MW by 2013 by setting up more peak-hour power plants, coal fired power units and renewable energy plants.
Outside investment has also come from Japan which on Sunday promised the country a $433 million loan to set up a power plant and upgrade a rural electrification project.
"The conditions of the loan are most generous. The interest rate is only 0.01% per annum and the repayment period is 40 years inclusive of a 10-year grace period," a Japan embassy statement said.
