DHAKA: Impoverished Bangladesh needs 10 billion dollars in investment over the next 10 years to alleviate its massive power shortage, the World Bank said on Wednesday.

The nation faces an average daily shortfall of 700 to 800 megawatts as demand rises due to fast economic growth. But this shortfall can peak as high as 2,000 megawatts when ageing plants are shut for maintenance.

“To improve the situation, an estimated investment, both public and private, at taka 700 billion, or roughly 10 billion dollars, will be needed over the next 10 years,” the bank said in a statement.

The bank announced a 275-million-dollar soft loan for construction of a gas-fired power plant near the capital. The plant, to be run by an international power company, would add 300 megawatts of power.

The estimate of the country’s power investment needs followed a recent World Bank mission visit to discuss ways to finance the sector.

The country requires “a comprehensive reform plan” to pave the way for private investment and donors’ support for the power sector, the bank said.

“Addressing power sector problems requires time,” it added.

Just 40 per cent of the 140 million population has access to electricity. In those rural areas with electricity, power lasts a maximum of six hours a day.

Even in Dhaka there are regular power cuts lasting five to six hours a day.

The shortages have led to protests. Some 17 people were killed in northern Chapainawabganj district earlier this year when police shot at farmers trying to storm electricity offices to demand power for irrigation pumps. Following the violence, a senior bureaucrat said the country was headed for more such confrontations as there was no way the situation could improve swiftly.

“This is a war-like situation. The supply scenario is so grim that we have to manage the load as it is done during wartime,” BD Rahmatullah, whose office advises the government on power sector reforms, told AFP.