1. Major Activities of the Month
In July, most of all the planned activities had to be postponed due to a lockdown amidst the third and the most severe COVID-19 outbreak in Bangladesh. The lockdown started from the previous month of June, from 28th initially for the first seven days till 5th July, but was eventually extended up to 13th July. The measure was then partially relieved for Eid ul-Adha festive season from 14th July to 22th July, and again tightened from 23th July to 5th August (status as of 31th July 2021).
Only a limited number of works was conducted remotely with the support from the team’s national experts, including 1) preparation of billboards, 2) procurement of energy audit equipment, and 3) DASH improvement. The PI Consultant Team is currently planning to resume their activities in Bangladesh from September 2021 onwards, after the pandemic situations stabilize, both in Bangladesh and the international consultants’ place of residence.
1.1 Preparation of billboards
The awareness raising billboard advertisement for the Project is currently being prepared. The billboards will be erected in each of the eight divisions around the country. Each billboard will be the size of approximately 1,200 square feet, carrying the design which is mostly identical to that of the newspaper advertisement. The details are as listed in the following table:
| Division | Location of billboard | Size | Display period |
| Dhaka Division | Dhaka-Mawa Highway, Dhaka | ||
| Barisal Division | Barisal-Dhaka Highway, Barisal | ||
| Sylhet Division | Sylhet-Dhaka Highway, Sylhet | ||
| Chittagong Division | Chittagong-Dhaka Highway, Chittagong | 1,200 | 365 |
| Khulna Division | Khulna-Dhaka Highway, Khulna | sqft | days |
| Mymensingh Division | Mymensingh – Dhaka Highway, Mymensingh | ||
| Rajshahi Division | Rajshahi-Dhaka Highway, Rajshahi | ||
| Rangpur Division | Rangpur- Dhaka Highway, Rangpur |
The billboard design was prepared by the PI Consultant Team with the consent of SREDA. Mugnee is an advertising agency in Bangladesh. The billboard will be prepared, erected and maintained by a service provider, Mugnee Multiple Ltd., who was the most competitive among the three bidders. The message of the advertisement is going to be in Bangla language so that it can reach out to more potential participants in a more effective manner. The billboard preparation and erection are expected to be done in September 2021.
1.2 Procurement of energy audit equipment
Due to the deteriorating situation of COVID-19 pandemic, the process of measurement equipment purchase has been protracted from the initial plan. However, some small progress was observed. Power Tech Electronics, from which the PI Consultant Team will procure HIOKI, TESTO and LUTON products, reported that all the ordered items arrived in Dhaka in late July and will be ready for delivery if the lockdown in Bangladesh is lifted as planned (currently slated for termination on 10th August). In the meanwhile, Express Systems Limited (ESL) told the PI Consultant Team that the ordered item (FLIR’s thermo camera) is still kept at the storage of its business partner in India since mid-June. The date when the cargo transport between India and Bangladesh will reopen is yet to be confirmed, but probably it will be at the end of August, at earliest, and the delivery to Dhaka is supposed to be made in September. The PI Consultant Team will continue communicating with the suppliers to have the equipment delivered as soon as possible.
1.3 Improvement of DASH
Improvement in the Project implementation ICT environment, up to now, has mostly been pursued with the Project MIS. As the Project has now reached the stage to analyse the effect of the interventions, the focus of the improvement in the ICT environment has shifted to DASH. Requests for improvement have been raised from the members of the PI Consultant Team since long ago, and these requests are now listed up to be implemented.
The improvements were made for the sub-project data analysis function, national energy data analysis function, and the report preparation function. Through the improvements, there will be higher flexibility in the data analysis and report preparation. Further, it will enable more of external data processing with the upload and download options made available. These features were found to be required as the PI Consultant Team realised, through the experiences of handling the actual data obtained through the sub-projects, that the data on sub-projects should be accommodated in a more variety of formats and conditions.
| Category | New features |
| Sub-project data analysis | Data export from sub-project repot generation function. Baseline, estimated actual reported data on sub-projects, in accordance with the selected date range, sub-sector and sub-project, can now be downloaded as data, and also generated as a report. |
| Synchronisation option of MIS data with DASH has been furnished. | |
| National energy data analysis | A new menu “Data Export Reports” is added, where users can export GDP data, national energy supply and consumption data, in accordance with the selected fuel source, sector and year range, as data or generated as a report. |
| Provision to set the default GDP type among real (constant), nominal (current), and PPP (purchasing power parity) data for calculating the national energy intensity has been added. | |
| Report preparation | Report heading, sub-heading customization and impact on the report setting has been furnished. |
| An option to use or disable sub-sector mapping has been added. |
2. Appendices
There is no appendix to this monthly progress report.