Lê Quang Thái. — Photo dangcongsan.vn

Lê Quang Thái, deputy director general of the EVN Northern Power Grid, talks to the Nông thôn Ngày nay (Countryside Today) about his corporation’s resolve to do their best to supply electricity to all households in northern mountainous provinces.

What did the EVN Northern Power Grid achieve in 2017?

The EVN Northern Power Corporation (NPC)’s target to have electricity to light up all rural areas nationwide has been running for many years. Now, almost 100 per cent of communes in northern Việt Nam are connected to the national grid. Though facing many challenges in 2013-2017, the EVNNPC worked closely with 27 provincial and city authorities to mobilise nearly VNĐ6.5 trillion (US$285 million) to invest in a dozen projects to bring electricity to rural and remote areas.

Many villages and communes in remote areas still do not have electricity. Do you have any plan to solve this problem?

In reality, it is quite different from people living in the delta, people live in the high mountain regions or along the border areas, they don’t live groups like those in the delta, but very scattered. In some places, they even live on high mountainous regions. In some special case, we had to lay some 100 km of electric cable to supply electricity for just some households. We understand it is a very high cost and huge human labour to bring electric to these households, but we have to do it. The EVNNPC has considered that it is our social responsibility to bring electricity to all households regardless where they live.

At present the EVNNPC has pulled its efforts and investment sources from ministries, central agencies and localities, plus fund coming from the NPC to bring light to all people living in remote mountainous areas.

The Government has set a target that by 2020, all households living in remote regions will connect to the national electricity grid. Does the EVNNPC adopt any measures to meet this target?

I should say it is “a tough job” for the NPC when our budget is very tight. But we promise to do our best to work with concerned agencies while mobilising financial resources from all available sources to light up households living in far flung regions.

Meanwhile, we also would like to call on the Government to have special policies for us when we carry out the Government’s assigned tasks to bring electricity to people living in remote or off shore islands. We also call on all local authorities to co-operate with us in settling the issue of  land resettlement and compensation  during the implementation of the project. Last but not least, we want all concerned government agencies co-operate with us and helped us in finding out the best solutions to accomplish the EVNNPC’s missions assigned by the Government.

Do you have any plan to secure the steady supply of electricity to northern mountainous regions?

It is undeniable that the topography of the 27northern mountainous provinces and regions is very difficult for us to lay the electricity cable. So is the high cost will incur during the operation or maintenance activities.

If we want to have our clients living in the high mountainous or remote areas to enjoy our high quality service as those living in the delta, we have to train local people to do some of their jobs as to read the monthly electric metres or to collect the electricity bills from each household.

The EVNNPC vows to do their best to have a steady electricity supply to all its customers regardless of where they’re located. Meanwhile we also want the consumers support us and be wise consumers to keep the electricity supply steadily. — VNS