Rural power program to get P4 B

President Arroyo has ordered the allocation of some P4 billion in the next two years to accelerate the government’s rural electrification program to boost the incomes of the poor in the countryside, Malacañang said.

National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) chief Secretary Domingo Panganiban said the government, through the energy department’s Expanded Rural Electrification Program, has prepared a massive work and investment program for 1,894 rural barangays still with no electricity.

He said the government estimates that the electrification of each targeted barangay will cost around P2 million.  

As of July this year, the government’s rural electrification program had already brought electricity to some 19,933 previously unlit barangays in Luzon, 11,105 in the Visayas, and 9,048 in Mindanao.

Mrs. Arroyo wants the government to achieve 100 percent barangay electrification by 2009.   – Paolo Romero