Workers install electrical facilities (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – Nearly 89 percent of households in rural areas, or 14.85 million households, had gained access to the national power grid by the end of 2015, according to the Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) Group.
Speaking at a conference to review the group’s operations in 2015 and put forth tasks for 2016 on January 6-7, EVN Deputy General Director Dinh Quang Tri said that as of late 2015, 89.1 percent of rural communes across the country had electricity.
According to Tri, during 2011-2015, the group allocated funding to ensure the completion of power projects in Tra Vinh, Soc Trang, Kien Giang, Bac Lieu, Lai Chau, Dien Bien, Son La and Bac Kan provinces, which has helped raise the proportion of Khmer people in the southwestern region using electricity to 90 percent and the rate of ethnics in the northwestern region to over 85 percent.
From 2009 to 2015, the EVN also completed several programmes totaling 575 billion VND (25.6 million USD) supporting the three poor districts of Tan Uyen, Than Uyen and Phong Tho in the northern mountainous province of Lai Chau, raising the rate of local households having electricity from 40 percent in 2011 to 90 percent in 2015.
The group and the Lai Chau provincial People’s Committee also signed another assistance agreement worth around 200 billion VND for the 2016-2020 period.
Over the past five years, it invested nearly 900 billion VND in resettlement for power source projects, and plans to add more 181 billion VND for the work in 2016.
This year, the EVN strives to finish projects in the electricity supply programme for rural, mountainous and island areas in 2013-2020 in order to ensure all rural households gain access to electricity.-VNA
