The meeting of promoting upgrading rural power grid in Yichang was held on July 22. It planned and arranged that Yichang will invest 6 billion yuan for rural power grid upgrading work from 2015 to 2020, and it is the largest investment of upgrading project in rural power grid. Song Wenbao, Member of Standing Committee of Municipal Committee and executive vice-mayor attended the meeting and made a speech; Yuan Weidong, Deputy Mayor chaired the meeting.

It was pointed out that Yichang has invested 5.514 billion yuan in power grid construction since the Twelve-Five planning which realized the transformation and upgrading of power grid from "transmission" to "acceptance". Then Yichang has become the lead in the regional power grid of Yichang, Jingzhou and Jingmen. In 2014, Yichang\'s social electricity consumption was up to 21.6 billion kilowatt-hours, second only to Wuhan. However, the power grid base in rural areas is weak. Some areas faced severe shortage of electricity and insufficient power supply. Rural areas were unable to reach the potential of electricity demand. In mountain areas, there are still 30,000 wooden poles. Yichang\'s per capita power consumption and household\'s capacity of distribution transform in rural areas are both lower than the average level of Hubei Province.

The meeting strengthened that government at all levels and related departments have to perform their responsibilities and fully recognize that rural power grid upgrading plays an important role in promoting rural-urban integration, improving Yichang\'s economic development and building a moderately prosperous society in all aspects, and strengthen the sense of responsibility and urgency in accelerating rural power grid\'s upgrading to put it in a focal position and catch opportunities to promote the rural power grid\'s upgrading. Government at all levels and related departments have to perform their duties to ensure the measures can keep up with demands and work as carefully as possible. Government at all levels should be active to connect with power supply departments and combine the major projects of "Thirteen-Five" planning with rural power grid\'s upgrading. Moreover, it is necessary to combine the project of taking targeted measures in poverty alleviation, new urbanization, shantytown transformation and industrial park construction with rural power grid\'s upgrading to provide convenient conditions for distribution network construction below the maximum limit and strongly promote the power grid construction. Municipal government should bring power grid\'s upgrading into livelihood projects and major works to check and evaluate works of governments at all levels and related departments and earnestly make sure that the responsibilities are clear and projects managements and supervisions and examinations are in place.

Municipal government signed responsibilities with the counties and districts at the meeting. (Reporter: Xiao Min; Intern: Meng Lingyun; Correspondent: Ao Yang)