China's power grid has been spreading quickly in rural areas,
with an extra 161,000 rural households hooked up since March this
year, raising the proportion of rural families with access to
electricity to a historic 99.4 percent, said the country's top
power operator Sunday.
Wang Min, spokesperson for the State Grid Corporation of China
(SGCC), said that since 1998 when construction of the rural grid
began, a total of 380 billion yuan (about US$48.1 billion) had been
pumped into the power network extension, more than had been
invested over the last half-century.
The heavy investment means that 99.9 percent of townships and
99.8 percent of villages in China now have electricity, she said,
lamenting though that some outlying areas, particularly in western
China, still remain unconnected to the grid.
The SGCC launched a project in March, vowing to bring
electricity to every rural household during the 11th Five-Year plan (2006-2010) period. Large
funds will be needed to complete this goal in remote areas, where
sparse habitation and long distances make the project very
cost-ineffective.
"As China's top power and grid operator, this is our social
responsibility. We have no choice but to meet the basic power needs
of rural residents," said Liu Zhenya, General Manager of the State
Grid.
(Xinhua News Agency October 9, 2006)