The state minister for power, energy and mineral resources Mohammad Enamul Haque told parliament on Thursday that in coming summer the country would face 1,500 MW shortage of electricity.
Replying to a question from Faridunnahar Laily, MP, he said that the average daily generation of power in February stood at 3,800 to 4,000 MW against the demand of 5,600MW.
He attributed the shortfall to short supply of gas.
But the shortage of power, he said, would go up in sum-mer due to increased demand.
The state minister listed the programmes taken by the government to meet the shortage.
They include, he said, setting up of power plants based on gas, liquid fuel, coal and duel fuel.
He said that the government expected to provide 15,000 MW of power to the national grid by 2016.
Replying to a separate question from Meher Afroz, he said that the government had a plan to increase power generation to 24,000MW by 2020-2021.
He said that now the country was facing a daily shortage of gas supply to the tune of more than 500 million cubic feet.
He said that against the daily demand of 2,500 million CFT the country’s 17 gas fields, out of 23, produce 2,000 million CFT.
The state minister said that the severe gas crisis resulted due to lack of effective steps for preserving gas, discovering new gas fields and increasing production over the last few years.
He said that in addition to conducting survey for digging five new wells, the government had signed an agreement with the government of Qatar for importing Liquified Natural Gas equivalent to 500 million CFT of gas everyday by 2012.
Answering to a supplementary question from Nurul Islam, the state minister said that the production from the Sangu gas field almost came to a stop affecting gas supply to Chittagong.
Replying to a question from Kazi Keramat Ali, he said that the government had taken to ensure uninterrupted power supply to irrigation pumps from 11 PM to 7 AM during the coming boro season.
He said that under a 13-pronged step to ensure power supply to the irrigation pumps the distribution lines and sub-stations were renovated and repaired by December.
The state minister said that the irrigation pumps would get uninterrupted power supply for at least two hours and there would be no load shedding in irrigation areas at least one day each week.
He said that the energy ministry would request the home ministry to instruct the superintendents of police to stop frequent theft of electric transformers
