MANILA, Philippines—State-run National Electrification Administration has been granted a P1.4-billion budget for 2011. The agency will use the fund to provide electricity in remote areas in the country.
President Aquino himself announced this late last week in Tarlac where he paid tribute to 13 electric cooperatives that helped restore power in the region after the onslaught of Typhoon “Juan.”
“Although 99 percent of the barangays have been energized, only 61 percent of the sitios have been electrified. Thus, there is a need to make provisions in the budget for the national electrification program so more homes can have access to electricity and thereby improve the quality of their lives,” Mr. Aquino said.
A sitio is a community unit smaller than a barangay.
According to NEA, it may take roughly P500,000 to energize a sitio—about half off the P1-million budget needed to power up a barangay. As of November 2010, there are still 30,875 sitios without electricity.
NEA, the state-run agency that supervises electric cooperatives nationwide, declined to cite a more specific timeline as to when it could achieve 100-percent sitio electrification.
However, it announced earlier this year that it would need some P31 billion to achieve this target by 2020.
In 2011, NEA hopes to provide power to 1,500 sitios. Between 2012 and 2015, more than 17,000 sitios may be energized.
NEA receives funding from the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation (PSALM), apart from foreign loans and government allocations.
As of June this year, the agency received a total of P11.219 billion in subsidies from the government.
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